


Crystals and Tentacles

by Prometheas_Mother



Category: Loki - Fandom, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 05:00:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14513085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prometheas_Mother/pseuds/Prometheas_Mother
Summary: Takes place between The Avengers and Thor: The Dark World. A routine tesseract test goes incredibly wrong at a SHIELD base leaving a frustrated Loki to chase after a bereaved Thor. While being attacked at every turn, he becomes unlikely allies with a determined scientist.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written a story that wasn't PWP so please be kind. All comments are appreciated.

“If you think arming a bunch of scientists and sending them into a firefight is a good idea, you’re out of your goddamned minds.” Corinne announced fiercely to the group at large. She held her M16 carefully by the grip with the barrel pointed at the ceiling in case she accidentally fired off a few rounds. How the fuck had she even ended up in this insane situation? She glanced around at the group of SHIELD operatives, armed and ready for action, quickly slid her gaze past the two Asgardian gods blocking the door against attack, and then around the cluster of a half dozen or so nerdy scientists that were her colleagues. Yep, they were way of their league on this one.

“I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m ready to defend myself and our country from whatever those things are that came through the portal!” The invective of her colleague’s tone was ruined when he tried to push his glasses back up his nose without dropping his weapon.

“Dr. Johnson,” Corinne turned to him and stared him down despite the height difference. “You cried like a little kid when you got shot in the face during paint ball last year,” She heard a quick muffled chuckle from one of the female SHIELD operatives but kept going. “Also, you’re holding your weapon with the barrel pointed towards us with your finger on the trigger. Do you really think you’re qualified to handle that thing? Much less run into battle with it?”

“She has a point,” One of the male SHIELD operatives pointed out, looking to his commander. What was her name? Hill? Shill? Something like that.

“Half of us are going to freeze and the other half of us are going to just spray and pray and probably take out more people with friendly fire than actually hitting whatever-the-hell those things are.” Corinne added.

That won a snort from Loki who briefly glanced up from his brother to pin her with his cold green eyes. Corinne turned away immediately, shivering hard. The Murderer of New York scared the shit out of her. The less attention he paid her, the better. She hoped he forgot her as he went back to his grieving brother. Thor was a wreck, head bowed in defeat and his hammer hanging limply from his grip as heartrending sobs racked his entire frame.

Jane Foster had died in the explosion that ripped through the laboratory when the unexpected gate opened through the tesseract. All the tesseract experts were gone – the gruesome sight of Erik Selvig’s head rolling out of the smoke across the floor was an image that was going to stay with her for a long time. She and the other scientists were part of a tour group, the first to get an in depth overview of the Tesseract Research Facility. It was every scientist’s wet dream to be part of this exclusive tour. Corinne had practically fainted when she found out she was selected to be part of the elite group. Sure, she was an accomplished physical biochemist, but she hadn’t expected to be chosen from the sea of applicants ranging from Nobel Prize winners to fresh faced grad students already rocking HHMI grants.

The tour had started smoothly enough. Corinne had been impressed with Dr. Foster – tiny woman with a great mind and a generosity of spirit that shown through her expressive brown eyes. No wonder Thor was crying as if his life was over right now. The security that SHIELD provided was impressive to say the least. Especially after Loki had come through the gate and destroyed the first lab a few years ago, extreme precautions were taken whenever the tesseract was opened and a standing battalion of SHIELD agents occupied the facility. Corinne skated a quick glance beneath her eyelashes at Loki. He was terrifying and looked more than capable of committing mass murder with his dizzying height, glittering gold and green armor, and his remote detachment in the face of his brother’s distress. She quickly glanced away.

After the formalities and tours of the research labs came the main event. They were all shown into the viewing area to watch the tesseract at work. Corinne had squeezed her way to the front so she could get a closer look through the bullet-proof, shatter-proof glass walling them all off safely from the cavern of the tesseract zone. It was supposed to be a routine tesseract run: fire up the lasers, trigger the tesseract to resonate, and watch as a massive amount of energy was generated and pushed into huge batteries that could potentially provide power to thousands of people for months from a mere five second excitation.

But then it all went wrong. Tesseract energy levels pegged past the red two seconds into the experiment. Erik and Jane immediately shut the lasers down, but the tesseract only continued to glow brighter, becoming a blinding blue light that burned retinas. SHIELD agents immediately raised their weapons, prepared to fire at whatever dared to come through the quickly widening portal. Jane and Erik began running for the protection of the lead wall at the back of the theater, but what happened next was too fast to save anyone. The portal erupted in a massive explosion sending smoke, shrapnel, and body parts everywhere with some pieces smashing and splattering against the safety glass and jerking a short, startled scream from Corinne’s throat.

The Bifrost opened less than a second later dropping Thor into the main theater, his great hammer already swinging as he materialized. Corinne could hear him roaring for Jane even through the glass and over the din of sirens, sprinklers, and the rapidly pounding feet of approaching soldiers. She stared in horror as a glittering tentacle swirled out of the smoke and came at Thor from behind at lightning speed. Thor spun and crushed it before moving on, still screaming for Jane and smashing any obstacle in his path nearly faster than her eyes could track.

And then she saw them. Hundreds of glittering, slithering entities pouring through the portal. Slightly larger than a human with giant diamond shaped heads, one large eye, and tentacles instead of hands and feet. They began engaging Thor and the few remaining SHIELD agents with a combination of laser-like energy beams shooting from some tentacles and the sheer physical force of the others, shooting out and wrapping around arms, legs, and heads that exploded as they squeezed. It was bedlam, and Corinne dropped down in a corner with her arms over her head trying to become one with the floor as the safety glass blew and showered them all with glittering pieces of glass.

The rest of the experience was a blur for Corinne. More explosions, screams, gunfire, another massive flash of rainbow light that seeped through her tightly closed eyelids as she cowered waiting to be killed by the horrors that had crossed into her world. Then someone was yanking her up hard by a grip on her upper arm and pushing her into the main tesseract theater. She blinked like an idiot taking in the massive destruction of both equipment and people, lost in her own world until someone shoved a gun in her hands and began explaining the stupidest fucking plan she had ever heard to them.

That brought her back to clarity and reality in a millisecond, and before she knew it she had opened her big mouth to tell everyone exactly what she thought of their plan.

“Then what’s your big plan, Dr. Dale?” Johnson sneered at her. Corinne winced and shrugged in embarrassment. She had still been zoned out for the probably very important conversation leading up to this point.

“Exactly,” He sneered dismissively at her. “Not all of us spent the battle curled up in a ball on the floor. Some of us were paying attention.”

“And some of you froze in place and became easy prey for those aliens,” Commander Hill turned fierce, assessing eyes to Corinne’s colleague. “If my crew hadn’t gotten here when they did, more of you would be dead. She has a point.” She jerked a chin at Corinne. “We can’t just have you guys running around shooting anything that moves. SHIELD has plans in place for this kind of situation. We can’t have you bumbling around causing more trouble.”

“I care nothing for SHIELD’s plans,” Thor’s voice suddenly boomed. They all turned to the broken god. He was standing tall before them now with tears running unapologetically down his face, but his grip on his hammer was suddenly fierce. “I am going to kill all of those bastards who killed my Jane. And then I will go to their home world and wipe them all out for good.” Loki placed one hand on his brother’s giant shoulder and squeezed.

“I stand with you, Brother,” was all he said.

Corinne nodded slightly at Thor’s words. It was a good plan, a sound one. Let the two gods go and handle those creatures while the puny humans hid away safely until this was all over. She didn’t see what she could possibly add to a seek-and-destroy mission. Leave that to the professionals. She was a scientist, not a soldier. What did she know about killing aliens? Nothing. She would only be a liability.

But for some reason Commander Hill didn’t see it that way. She got up in Thor’s space and began talking about procedures and permissions and chain of command. But when she got to “We’re buried nearly half a mile underground here. Nothing and no one is getting in or out until SHIELD gives the all clear,” Corinne was suddenly crushed under a wave of panic and a buzzing in her ears that blocked out all conversation and rational thought.

She stumbled back a few steps and fell against the nearest wall. Trapped. They were trapped in here with God only knew how many of those aliens running around the facility and doing whatever the hell they pleased. Killing, maiming, and destroying whatever the hell they pleased. Her vision started to blur; it became difficult to breathe. They were all sitting ducks in here. They could be plucked away by one by those _things_ at any moment and die a bone crushing death strangled by one of those crystalline tentacles…

_Get a grip!_ The thought blew through her mind as a command, her better self rising up to meet the clawing grasp of her id. She was having a panic attack. And the only thing a panic attack would do was make her stupid and careless. It would get her killed faster than her lack of combat skills. She had to get herself under control.

Corinne bent and put her head between her knees, taking slow breaths in and slower breaths out until her heart rate returned to a reasonable pace and she was capable of hearing and processing thought again. She rose back to standing carefully, a hand on the wall to keep her balance as she focused on her meditative breathing. When she opened her eyes, it was to see Loki staring at her disdainfully. _This one won’t last long_ , he seemed to be saying. Corinne couldn’t find a reason to disagree with him. She looked away from him, ashamed.

Her eyes landed on the remains of a glistening tentacle, the pointed end intact but the severed section crushed beneath what must have been one of Thor’s mighty blows. She stared at it, trying to grasp what she was seeing. The intact portion was covered in whorled crystals, but the gore coming from the other end seemed to indicate some sort of biology going on underneath the armor. If she focused for more than a second or two on the whorls she could feel her vision begin to rotate as if being sucked into the complex structure. She blinked and moved her vision to the shards of broken crystals scattered around the appendage. She focused on them, but didn’t get the same effect. They were just inert, sparkling fragments on the bloody floor. But when she flipped her vision back to the undisrupted structure, she experienced the same sort of vertigo she had the first time. Corinne scanned the theater looking for other bits of the creatures and began to think.

She wasn’t a soldier. Fine. But that didn’t necessarily make her useless here. She had years and years of success in solving intractable problems using hypothesis-based reasoning and experimental problem solving. They effectively knew nothing about these creatures, and while Thor and Loki were off killing the bastards that would mean that the rest of them would be vulnerable to a surprise attack. Sure, the SHIELD agents were well armed and well trained, but those things were _fast_. Faster than anything she had ever seen. What if they couldn’t hold up against a concerted attack by those things? Was there something that she and her fellow scientists could learn about these creatures that could give them an edge? Possibly save them if they ended up in a tight spot?

The possibility that they would discover something useful was farfetched, Corinne admitted. Proper research took years of careful study and analysis. Throwing a bunch of scientists in a room and demanding that they find something useful to fight off alien creatures under duress was not the ideal situation for success. But then again, wasn’t necessity the mother of invention?

The slamming of the door drew Corinne’s attention. Thor and Loki were gone, and Commander Hill was staring at the closed door red-faced and furious. She turned to the group of soldiers and scientists and straightened her spine.

“Okay, people. I don’t care what those assholes are going to do, but we have our own plans to follow. Starting now.”

Corinne shrugged her shoulders and turned away from the group. Right now she had her own plans to attend to.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

A double pair of gloves and an ersatz satchel made from her lab coat later, Corinne had collected eight pieces of tentacle varying in length from a few inches to a few feet plus a couple hundred crystal shards that she shoved into the lab coat’s pocket. She kept half an ear to the group conversation to make sure she didn’t end up being left behind or somehow taking lead on a foray.

“What are you doing?” The woman’s soft question startled her, and Corinne turned to find a petite Asian woman squatting next to her eyeing her booty curiously. Corinne shrugged.

“Keeping myself busy while those guys hash things out,” She replied with a nod of her chin towards the SHIELD agents.

“Collecting samples,” The woman nodded approvingly. She leaned over to examine the pieces more closely, but kept her hands clasped tightly against her abdomen to avoid an accidental touch. “Find anything interesting?”

“Actually, there is something odd, but I’m not sure if it’s just me. Care to be my guinea pig?” Corinne smiled wryly at the other woman.

“Love to,” The woman smiled back. “I’m Angela, by the way. Angela Hu.” She put her hand out in a virtual shake to avoid touching Corinne’s gloved hands.

“As in the world famous physicist Dr. Angela Hu?” Corinne’s eyes widened. Angela Hu was widely considered to be short-listed for the next Nobel Prize in Physics for her work on the Higgs Boson. Angela ducked her head and nodded.

“I guess you could say that.”

“Daaaaamn,” Corrine grinned. “I should be your guinea pig instead.” Angela laughed.

“No way. I know next to nothing about living things. Is it your area of expertise?”

“Barely. Biophysics and biochemistry. I only like it when it’s molecular, but I can play a biologist if I have to. Now take a look at this and tell me what you see.” Corinne flipped over one of the tentacles so the crystalline patterns were visible.

“Nothing in particular,” Angela shrugged. “Heavy on the blues and silvers, standard Fibonacci patterns. Weird to see those from another dimension, but that probably means that the physics of our dimensions are closely matched. Would explain why they came in here and were fine rather than all dying horrible deaths because they follow different rules of physics in their dimension.” Corinne nodded and flipped over another tentacle.

“What about this one?”

Angela stared for a moment and then closed her eyes. She opened them and repeated the process.

“What the hell?” She breathed. “Why does looking at that make me dizzy?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Corinne nodded. “And look,” She picked up the bewildering tentacle to show that it was a tube ending in an oblong opening. “The dizzying ones all end with this opening structure, but the others are closed. I’m thinking that they might have different functions for the creatures like squid have arms and tentacles.”

“We need to get these to a lab and study them.” Angela replied. She stood and approached the group of SHIELD agents and scientists decisively.

“Commander Hill, Dr. Dale has found something from the samples of the creatures she collected. We need to get to one of the labs and take a closer look.”

“Absolutely not,” Commander Hill stated flatly. “Our primary objective is to find these creatures and destroy them. We don’t have time to babysit a bunch of scientists.” Corinne had made her way over to the group by this time and frowned at Hill’s dismissive tone.

“Commander, you know we are no good to your team in a fight. But you have some of the best scientific minds in the world with you here. Those things decimated your agents when they came through the portal. If you give us a few of your soldiers to babysit us and get us to a lab, there’s a chance that we can find something that you can use, some weakness that you can exploit. I assume that your communications are working. If we find something, the team can radio that information to your agents. It might save their lives.” She used her best Scientist Voice to persuade the commander.

 It seemed to work as Hill gave a sigh and looked over the group. The scientists were suddenly alert and eager, whispering among themselves and glancing over at Corinne’s gruesome bag of treasures. She frowned and nodded.

“Fine. Stevens, take three other agents with you and take the scientists to the research lab two levels up.”

Stevens returned the nod and selected three of her fellow soldiers.

“OK, guys,” She turned to the group of geeks. “Keep your weapons with you. Do exactly what I say, when I say it, and you might make it to the lab alive. We’re going to try the elevator. The stairs will leave us too vulnerable to an attack in close quarters.”

Corrine ran to her lab coat and began bundling it closed, trying to keep random tentacles from slipping through the gaps. She slung her M16 over her shoulder (with the safety most definitely _on_ ) and joined the forming squad.

They all bundled into the industrial elevator, the soldiers in front and the scientists pressing against the back wall. The flashing amber emergency lights made the whole scene dim and surreal. Corrine shivered. What if those things were waiting for them two floors above? What if this crazy idea just got them all killed in the next five minutes?

The elevator ride was interminable. The doors took forever to close, the car bumped as it started to ascend. Corinne focused on her breathing and kept a stranglehold grip on her samples as the elevator slowly rose to the research area. The car stopped, Stevens nodded, and her team immediately took point ready to blast the living hell out of anything that might be waiting for them on the other side. The elevator doors slowly opened. She could hear the harsh breaths of her colleagues as they all prepared for the worst to be waiting for them on the other side.

Nothing. The hall on the other side of the doors was dim and empty except for the pulsing lights lining the edges of the floor. Silent. Which should have been a good thing, but instead made Corinne worry that monsters were lurking around every corner waiting to ambush them. Stevens seemed to agree. She used swift hand gestures and took point, her team herding the scientists into the corridor. Two took the right and left sides, flashlights scanning the area for potential threats with their weapons at the ready. The final member brought up the rear to keep anyone from falling behind. No need to worry about that. Corinne and her colleagues moved in a tight knot trying to make themselves invisible to any approaching menace and keep with the soldiers protecting them. Even Dr. Johnson had lost his bravado now that they were really in danger.

Five steps. Ten steps. Still quiet. The pulsing emergency lights cast an ominous glow that made Corrine shiver. Ten more and Stevens motioned them to a halt and swiped a key card along the pad next to a door on the left. She gestured and the two soldiers guarding their flanks joined her. They pushed the door open silently and rushed in to scope out the lab for hostile occupants. Corrine felt sweat beading on her forehead and pooling in her armpits as they waited. The seconds ticked by loudly in her head. They were vulnerable out here. Sitting ducks. Finally one of the soldiers appeared at the lab entrance and waved them in, giving them a thumbs up.

She and the other scientists practically stumbled over each other getting into the safety of the lab, bursting through the doorway in a mad squeeze and wheezing as they all tried to catch their breaths after holding it for so long in the corridor.

_We’re all idiots_ , Corinne thought with derision as she caught her breath with her colleagues. Untrained cowards walking through a war zone with no idea of how to protect themselves. One of the other scientists moved to flip on the lights and got his hand smacked down by one of the soldiers.

“No overhead lights. No drawing attention to ourselves. Flashlights are in the emergency cabinet over there. Do your work with those.” The man’s head bobbed in acknowledgment and he moved cautiously to the cabinet.

Corinne took in the lab layout in the emergency glow. Lots of tables, piles of equipment on various benches. Hard to identify which did what without closer examination. Corinne carefully set her load on the nearest bench and stripped off her outer layer of gloves. She could recognize a biohazard container even in the dark after a lifetime spent in a lab. She quickly dropped the contaminated pair in the bin and turned to Angela.

“Watch these while I go get some supplies?” She asked. Angela nodded and took up position by the samples while Corinne went to the emergency cabinet to see what they had to work with.

Wow. SHIELD did not mess around when it came to emergency preparedness. The cabinet was massive with three sets of doors. She pulled open the farthest set as the other two were occupied. Flashlights lined the left door hanging from precisely spaced brackets. Corinne grabbed one and switched it on. The cabinet was stocked like they were preparing for the end of days, she thought, letting out a low whistle. Backpacks, food, water, tools, batteries, spare weapons and ammunition. The whole shebang.

Corrine shoved the handle of the flashlight under her armpit and began packing two bags. Food, water, first aid kits for each. She shrugged and dumped in as many M16 ammunition clips as she could into each bag. She might know next to nothing about shooting an assault rifle, but it was better to be prepared. Extra flashlight batteries and cell phone chargers went in as well with a few pairs of thick rubber gloves. Corinne eyed the bottom row of equipment. A generator and several industrial strength batteries lined the bottom. If they lost power, they would be in good shape here. She hoisted the bulging backpacks over each shoulder and returned to Angela.

The petite physicist was already sharing information and doling out pieces of creature to the other four scientists. Corinne grimaced. She better not have given away the special tentacles. They only had two samples to work with, one a few inches long and the other a foot or so of mind-bending whorls. She stepped up beside Angela and looked at her meaningfully in the glow of the flashlight.

“Don’t worry,” She whispered conspiratorially. “I saved the best for us.” Corinne relaxed a bit and grinned back at the woman.

Settling into the rhythm of research was easier than Corinne expected. But it was soothing, familiar work, and she soon forgot about the fact that they were working under the cover of darkness in fear for their lives. The puzzle before her was simply too fascinating to allow any of those other conditions to impact her state of mind. She and Angela were sharing a long bench, Angela near the far wall working with some massive piece of equipment that was totally unfamiliar to Corinne. Corinne was making do with what she could find in a physics lab to inspect a biological specimen. No microscopes with the level of magnification she required, no stains to work with, no extraction buffers to pull out proteins and nucleic acids, no handy dandy X-ray diffractor to let her see the structure of the blue and silver crystals she was trying to understand.

For now she was double gloved again sitting in front of an oscilloscope with the long piece of whorled tentacle inside a glass tube. She hooked electrodes to the ends of flesh to get a baseline and saw about what she expected – a few millivolts of background electricity moving across the scope. She hooked the electrodes to the crystals only to find that they were totally inert as well. Just out of curiosity, Corinne hooked one electrode to the flesh and the other to a section of crystal.

_Wham!_ The oscilloscope spiked until she dialed up the bandwidth. A hundred and twenty volts rolled across the scope and held steady. What the hell? Corinne just stared at the reading. How was there voltage between these two pieces? What circuit were they completing? What did it mean? She flipped the dial to power and was surprised to see nearly a thousand watts flowing through the circuit. Enough to fry someone where they stood. She huffed grimly and stared at her gloved hands.  Here she thought she had been protecting herself from some sort of alien virus. Turns out she had been protecting herself from electrocution. If she had closed that loop with her bare hands, it could’ve been a nasty death.

She studied the sample in its tube. The crystals were slowly beginning to glow, now reaching the brightness of a standard cell phone screen, and then zooming past that in a burst of blue white fury that ended with a frying zap as her oscilloscope shorted out. The pungent smell of burning circuitry filled her nostrils as she just stared at the now dark crystals. Holy shit. They had been drawing power from the wall circuits via the oscilloscope. That shouldn’t even be possible. The thing was grounded under half a mile of earth. No freaking way that should have been able to happen. Ever. She scrolled through the final seconds of the oscilloscope’s readings on the computer and saw the power signature increasing exponentially until the sudden loss of its power source.

“You find something?” Angela asked, looking up from her computer. The blue glow brought her features into sharp relief in the darkness. Her nose wrinkled at the smell.

“Yes. I’m just not sure what it means,” Corinne replied, chewing on her lip. “What about you?”

“I’ve got a bucket of freaking impossible over here,” Angela huffed and motioned Corinne over.

“What is that machine you’re using?” Corinne gestured at the massive drum in the near dark.

“Absolute zero environment,” Angela waved it away like it was nothing, but Corinne felt her jaw drop.

“Doesn’t getting to absolute zero take an entire building or something?” She whispered in awe, taking an involuntary step away from the deadly piece of equipment.

“Gotta love SHIELD,” Angela quipped. “They’ve got all the best toys.”

“No shit.” Corinne shook her attention away from the machine and turned to the computer instead. “What’d you find?” The rotating shapes were unfamiliar to her. They looked vaguely like hybrid orbitals, but nothing would hold steady. Two layers kept trying to overlap as they serenely rotated and the failure to align was creating a scrolling mathematical nightmare across the bottom of the screen. Corinne hadn’t thought about the Schrödinger equation in years; she couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was seeing. “Uh, you’re going to have to dumb this down for me.”

Angela sat back from the computer and pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers. She looked up after a moment with a long sigh.

“I’m going to have to dumb it down for myself,” She admitted in the darkness. Corinne’s eyebrows crawled up her forehead at the admission. One of the greatest minds in the entire world, and she couldn’t understand what was going on? What hope did they have of finding anything useful if that was the case?

“Nearest I can figure,” Angela sat forward and began scrolling through images on the screen, “Is that the crystals, when held in the whorls, exist in two similar but distinct quantum realities. Separate them from the blue crystals and the silver ones slowly lose coherence and slip back into our quantum reality. Break the pattern, same result. But something about those crystals in that exact alignment…” She trailed off and shrugged. “I don’t know what that means. I don’t even know how this is happening. Shouldn’t even be possible.”

“Um, how much energy would it take for an electron to jump across those realities?” Corinne asked cautiously, her mind spinning as she thought back to how her crystals had brightened exponentially as they sucked power. Had she triggered some kind of cascade?

“An electron. Impossible,” Angela huffed. “You might manage to shove a quark across, but the energy released from that alone would be enormous while the crystals are being held in their separate states.”

“Like enormous enough to explain those sci-fi blasts we saw when those things first came through the portal?” Corinne asked.

“Oh, shit, yeah!” Corinne exclaimed. “But where are they getting the initial energy to excite a quark like that? And it would probably result in some sort of cascade, and –”

“Stevens, this is Hill,” The radio crackle stopped everyone dead in their tracks. Corinne and Angela stared at Stevens, breaths held tight as they waited for news.

“We’ve made it to the Central Command. We can track these bastards on infrared. We show about two hundred inside the complex.”

“Roger that, Commander,” Stevens replied. “We’re holed up in the lab on Level 23. So far, so good.”

“Well it’s not going to stay that way,” Hill’s voice was urgent. “We just spotted two pods of the suckers entering your level. Stay down, stay quiet. We don’t know how these things sense their environment so that’s all the advice I can give you. I’d say get the hell out of there, but you’re blocked off. They’re coming at you from both directions. Lay low and keep those damn scientists out of the mix.”

“Got it,” Stevens said, scanning her gaze meaningfully across the people in her charge. “Switching to ear pieces now. Consider no news good news from here on out.” Stevens switched the radio and stuffed in her earpiece, her fellow soldiers following suit.

_Shit, shit, shit!_ Corinne thought frantically as sweat broke out on her entire body. She and Angela shared a quick, terrified glance. Angela slammed her computer shut and started flipping switches on her equipment to shut it down. Corinne rushed to her computer and did the same before dropping to the floor and pulling her M16 close. She had no idea if she was going to freeze or pull the trigger if they were attacked, but she hoped it was the latter.

Minutes dragged by in utter silence. Stevens sent a soldier each to crouch behind the benches nearest the two entrances, rifles at the ready. Corinne was somewhere in the middle of the long rows, her back pressed tightly to the cabinets. Adrenaline was pouring through her body, making her hyper-alert. She could pick up every shadow when the lights blinked off, hear every breath taken by each person in the room.

Then the scratching and tapping began. Quiet at first, barely above the level of the HVAC system hissing through the laboratory. Then growing slowly louder, quickly eclipsing the sound of Corinne’s heartbeat in her ears. Corinne’s eyes strained to the doorway trying to catch a glimpse of the creatures through the small glass window set in the door. They were coming from that side. The inhuman clatter grew in volume and intensity until the flashing lights from the corridor were suddenly blotted out.

_Fuck!_ Corinne held her breath in terror. Those things were right here. Only a closed door and maybe fifty feet separating her from them. If they were spotted… She gripped her gun tighter and vaguely considered a godless prayer, but the figure outside moved on. The tapping and scratching didn’t stop as several more of the creatures passed the door, but it did begin to recede as they made their way down the corridor.

Corinne let out a shaking breath and slumped over her gun. They hadn’t been detected. They were safe for now at least.

_“Good morning, Sunshine!”_ Blared out in the stillness of the lab. _“I hope that you’re well!”_

“Shit, sorry, it’s my alarm,” one of the male scientists squeaked in the dark. He was scuffling around, probably trying to dig the damn thing out of his pocket.

_“Honey, I missed you last night when I fell!”_

“Shut that fucking thing off!” Stevens hissed over the din.

“I’m trying!” The man hissed back. There was a clatter and a cell phone went skittering across the floor and landed in the long aisle between the lab benches and offices, screen side up and vibrating as it continued to announce their presence to the world. Corinne stared at in in horror.

_“You should know, Sunshine, you brighten my –!”_

The song ended on a crunch. One of the soldiers had run up and slammed the offending phone with the butt of his rifle. Silence fell.

No. Silence had not fallen. The tapping and scratching had started again, frenzied and louder this time and headed back in their direction.

“Positions,” Stevens called to her team, and Corinne watched a soldier scuttle by her to take a forward position near the left door. Holy hell. She didn’t know where they found the courage. She was shaking like a scared little girl, and these people were preparing to take those things down.

The door came off its hinges in an ear-splitting screech as it was wrenched from the wall. Corinne dared a quick glance around the end of the bench and saw glowing sliver blue tentacles whirling in the doorway a split second before Stevens and her team laid down a layer of machine gun fire across the doorway. The creature let out a screech that nearly deafened her, but it barely slowed down. It raised one of its tentacles and sent a burst of red energy towards the gunfire, ripping an entire section of lab bench from the floor and tossing it across the room where it landed and shattered across the other benches.

It was bedlam after that. Corrine remained crouched in her position behind one of the lab benches, breathing hard as debris fell around her, feeling useless and frustrated. What was all her education and supposed brainpower worth if it made her worthless in a real life or death situation? Red energy pulses flashed around her, and she could hear Stevens screaming fiercely into her radio that they needed backup above the din.

_Fucking useless._ She was so. Fucking. Useless. Screams surrounded her – both human and inhuman – and still she cowered in her position. It wasn’t until she noticed that the strafing gun fire was thinning out that her head jerked up. Were the creatures retreating? Were they safe? She peeked an eye around the corner.

Not even close. One of the SHIELD agents was down on the floor by the door having his limbs rent from his body one by one. And no one else was stepping up. Not a single scientist was moving or shooting at the damn things. They were all frozen little rabbits waiting for the soldiers to save them, letting them give their lives in exchange for their own. And those soldiers were losing. The machine gun fire seemed to be slowing the creatures down, but it wasn’t enough to stop the things. They were pushing through the door. Something had to be done.

She glanced at Angela as a burst of red shattered into the ceiling overhead raining fiberglass all over them. Her arms were clenched around her knees and she was rocking in place with her eyes squeezed shut. Corinne looked down at herself. She had locked her body in nearly the same position.

_Enough!_ Some part of her screamed. She awkwardly grabbed the M16, struggling to flip the safety as a piece of silver and blue tentacle skittered across the floor in front of her. It caught her eye and she went stock still. Then all of her neurons fired at once and the plan fell into place. She dropped the M16 and moved into a crouch instead.

The machine guns weren’t working. _So don’t use them_. Use something else. Use what they had learned about these things against them. Stop them with their own weapons.

One hundred and twenty volts. That’s all it had taken to start ramping up those crystals and building up power. What would have happened if the oscilloscope hadn’t shorted out? What if it had continued to charge? All of that energy would have to go somewhere. As another red energy bolt careened off the wall, Corinne nodded her head in determination.

She was maybe fifteen feet from the emergency cabinet. A short distance forward and left, but also across the open space between the lab benches and the offices. She’d be vulnerable scuttling there and back.

_Fuck it._ She was vulnerable now. How long before hers was the next lab bench blasted? Safety was an illusion right now. Nowhere was safe with those things attacking. She had to move. Corinne gritted her teeth and practically threw herself the distance to the cabinet, getting one door open and shielding herself behind it.

She went for the lowest level grabbing two large lithium ion batteries and a mangle of jumper cables. The trip back to her hidey hole was even riskier lugging her booty, but she took a deep breath, put on her mental big girl pants, and made a crouched run for it. Once behind her bench, she reached up with one fumbling hand until she found the glass cylinder containing the alien sample covered with crystals. She set it on the ground next to her and set to work.

The batteries were huge. Probably larger than the batteries used in electric cars. Hundreds and hundreds of volts just waiting to be pumped into that damned piece of tentacle. The power generated would be enormous when she hooked the batteries to it. Corinne cursed under her breath as she struggled to untangle the mass of jumper cables, finally getting the batteries hooked in series and one clamp attached to the crystals. She took a deep breath, attached the final cable to the skin and watched as the light show began. It took less than a second for the crystals to ramp to a blinding blue light and the cylinder in her hand began to shiver. Shit, this was moving way faster than she expected. She had to _move_.

Corinne ducked into the aisle, cylinder held firmly against her abdomen as the power and light continued to ramp. She was suddenly the focus of all attention. The huge single eyes of the two creatures that had breached the lab swung to her, tentacles already racing in her direction. If this didn’t work, she’d be the one being wrenched apart bodily in the next couple of seconds.

Corrine’s hands shook, but she planted her body firmly, gritted her teeth, and stayed where she was.

_THWUMP!_

The tentacle in the cylinder discharged the largest freaking bolt of raw energy she had ever seen. Not even Ironman had that kind of power in his repulsors. The recoil was tremendous, sending Corinne reeling ass over tea kettle down the aisle as destruction rained down on the other end of the lab.


	3. Chapter 3

Loki had lost Thor.

Thor had gone Berserker after losing his little mortal. Loki sighed for the fiftieth time in exasperation. He knew better than anyone the importance of keeping one’s heart safe, the emotional distance required in order to survive. His golden, shining brother had never had to learn those lessons. Thor was paying the price now. Unfortunately, Loki was paying it with him.

Still, Loki mused as he rushed down a dim stairwell, he preferred running around in this pit on Midgard over the interminable boredom of his prison cell. His sentence temporarily commuted with Odin’s words of “Get Thor!” Loki’s smile was more like a snarl. Oh, they hated him. But when things got tough, they had to admit that they needed him. The clever, deceitful God of Mischief was the person Asgard called upon when things went to hell. They always had. They always would.

And despite it all – the years of living in Thor’s shadow, the discovery of his true parentage, his war with his brother in New York – Loki loved Thor deeply. With a hatred intense enough to match. Two sides of the same coin. He was trapped in this relationship, a dog running in circles trying to bite his tail only to catch it and realize his victory only caused himself harm. Would it never end?

Even now he was torn. Part of him reveled in Thor’s pain – his arrogant brother being brought down just as he deserved, finally learning that life wasn’t all about the joys of the next battle or the next feast; that not every story ended happily with him sitting on the throne while all of Asgard adored him. And yet… seeing his brother grief stricken and broken had lit a fury in him. His desire to take vengeance on those creatures for causing Thor pain burned bright and painful in his chest. They would pay for what they had done. Only he was allowed to hurt Thor.

The current challenge was that these creatures were tougher and faster than they foresaw. Thor and Mjolnir did well enough against them as long as their numbers were small. Loki’s knives and spells hit true but did not do the damage that he anticipated. He and Thor had stood back to back fighting furiously during their first encounter. A few dozen of the creatures rushed and surrounded them. It had ended in a draw with Loki separated from Thor, escaping the oncoming horde with a neat illusion that had allowed him to dodge the fray and find a new vantage point from which to attack.

But Thor was gone in the few seconds it had taken Loki to find a new position. Thor flung off the writhing mass on top of him, his hammer spinning furiously and propelling him through the crush of bodies and several floors of the SHIELD base as well. The creatures had scattered after that, their bodies undulating in their odd crawl and scrape of arms and tentacles. They seemed to have little hierarchy or organization. Some had crawled up the wall and through the hole in the ceiling created by Thor while others dispersed throughout the corridors and the base.

What did these creatures want? Loki pondered as he entered another floor of the underground SHIELD base. He had been dropped unceremoniously into the midst of battle by Heimdall and there had been no time for questions then. Afterwards neither Thor nor the humans had been particularly forthcoming. All he knew was that these things had come through the tesseract during a standard experiment and began killing indiscriminately.

Foolish mortals. He gritted his teeth. They would be much better off if they had they accepted his benevolent rule and stopped playing with forces beyond their abilities to control or understand.

He pushed that thought away with a flinch of distaste. That was Thanos talking. Despite his best attempts to resist, Thanos had bested him in the end. Put him in his thrall. Loki himself truly wanted nothing to do with ruling a world filled with tiresome mortals. Where would be the sport? The fun? For the most part he found them to be crushingly dull and stupid. There were a few exceptions of course. Stark would have made for an interesting time, and he was sure that with a little coaxing the Banner/Hulk duo would have created endless opportunities for amusement. But enough for him to go about the business of ruling? No. He preferred to operate independently, free from the boundaries circumscribed by any company other than his own.

All he had was his own company at the moment, and that was a problem. His job was to “Get Thor”, not scuttle about some tiresome human military base in the dark. If he did indeed Get Thor and bring him back in one piece, there was the chance that Odin would commute his sentence, and he could get out of that ridiculous prison cell and on with his life. Or what was left of it. Loki flinched again. Another thought that was best left alone.

Loki was stuck following his nose, so to speak. He knew Thor. All he had to do was listen for the sound of battle, follow it, and lo and behold! There his brother would be. Thor was nothing if not predictable. The rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire in the distance came to him, and Loki took off at a run. It was just like his brother to get involved protecting the humans he held so dear even in Berserker mode. Loki turned a corner and the pulsing lights revealed four of the creatures undulating down a corridor. The gun fire was closer now, coming from behind the door the creatures were sprinting towards.

Loki wasted no time. Four knives materialized and went flying to strike the single eye of each beast. They stopped and screeched, turning their attention to him. He smiled grimly and sent a twist on his normal magic bursting through his fingertips while they were still disoriented and fried them where they stood. Excellent. His new spell was much more effective on these creatures. It took a significant toll on his energy though, and he wasn’t sure how long he could sustain that level of attack if he was facing a mob, but it worked well enough for now.

A massive explosion rocked the floor as he approached the door. Thor using Mjolnir, Loki suspected, flinging open the door and preparing to meet whatever creatures were left. A swiftly tumbling body hit him square in the shins as he stood in the doorway. He looked down at the mortal and up at the wall of smoking rubble at the end of the long room scanning for Thor. He was nowhere to be seen. Loki looked back down at the mortal with a frown.

She must have mistaken his look for a question because she suddenly grinned maniacally up at him, eyes glittering with triumph, and announced:

“I shot them!” Waving a scorched cylinder at him like that explained everything. Loki merely raised his eyebrows. Mortals. He didn’t understand them.

“Where’s Thor?” Was all he said in return.

“Don’t know,” She replied flippantly, brushing loose hair that had fallen from her haphazard ponytail out of her face. “Didn’t need him.” Her grin, if anything, grew wider. Loki shook his head and stepped around the woman to find someone lucid to speak with. She must have hit her head while tumbling from the blast. He knew what the SHIELD agents carried with them, and not even a grenade could have done the amount of damage he was seeing at the other end of the room. Thor must have been here. How else to explain the smoking ruin of the wall, the destroyed corridor behind that, and the numerous alien body parts strewn across the area? He strode into the middle of the room.

“Where’s Thor?” He demanded forcefully to the room at large, scanning the mortals who were slowly picking themselves up after the battle. One of the SHIELD agents approached him but kept a safe distance, gun pointed defensively at him. Loki sneered. That weapon was useless against him. If she thought to protect herself from him with that toy, she was in for a rude surprise.

“We haven’t seen him,” She stated flatly. “Wasn’t it your job to stay with him?” Loki snarled at the pointed barb. He might just have to kill this one for reminding him of his failure. Thor would disapprove, he reminded himself, leashing his temper. And killing mortals for speaking disrespectfully would not aid him in getting his prison sentence commuted.

“Then explain this.” He gestured to the massive pile of smoking rubble before them. The soldier shrugged and pointed.

“Ask her. She’s the one who did it.” Loki followed her finger to the crazy woman who had rolled into him. She had picked herself off the floor and was wobbling over to a table, grin still plastered on her face. He rolled his eyes. Perfect. Like he had time to speak with some addled woman. But still… if she had managed to wreak this kind of havoc on a group of these creatures, she might know something he could use to improve his own tactics against them. He strode to meet her.

“What did you do?” He demanded, looking down his nose at her. She wasn’t a warrior of any kind. That much was clear from her clothes and her mildly trembling hands as she laid the blackened tube on the countertop. She looked up at him, the grin finally disappearing, but the glowing light of triumph still gleamed brightly in her eyes.

“I used their own weapon against them,” She explained, shaking the scorched tube until a length of glittering tentacle spilled out across the table. He raised a hand above his shoulder and sparked a magical light so he could see what she was talking about.

Loki’s eyes widened as he took in her prize. There were runes woven into the crystals that covered the severed tentacle. Faint and shimmering as if held between realms, but there nonetheless. He didn’t recognize their meaning, but he knew powerful magic when he saw it. It would explain much regarding the difficulty in killing these creatures. He reached his other hand out to touch the crystals, but the mortal slapped his hand out of the way before he could make contact.

“Interfere, and I will kill you,” He informed her coolly.

“Touch that specimen, and it might kill you,” She returned sharply, glaring up at him.

“Doubtful,” The edge of Loki’s lips turned up in a half smile. How cute. This mortal thought she was protecting him. He reached for the tentacle again only to be slapped away a second time. This was becoming tedious.

“This thing draws energy from any source it can get, even if it’s grounded. I can’t explain how, but I don’t think giving it access to _your_ energy would be a very good idea.” She rebuked him pointedly.

“I can control my magic, woman,” He huffed with annoyance.

“Magic,” She huffed back, crossing her arms across her chest. “Is that your expert assessment of what’s controlling these things?” The sarcasm dripped from her voice. “Not biology? Not physics? Please.” She rolled her eyes. “And let’s say it is _magic,”_ She made air quotes around the last word for emphasis. “Is it magic you’ve seen before? Do you know its origin? Can you assure us all that no harm would come from you handling it?”

Loki’s first instinct was to reach out and strangle the mortal for defying him. But after a moment’s consideration he had to admit that she had a number of valid points. He didn’t know what this magic was or how it worked. He could not assure them that mingling his magic with this specimen would not harm him or create some unanticipated result that would be worse than what was already at work. Perhaps this woman wasn’t mad after all. He examined her closely for the first time. Intelligence lurked in her eyes even in the half light from his magic. Her chin was raised in challenge, daring him to say she was wrong. There was spine to this woman, and some wit too. A more honest approach would yield better results, he decided.

“No. I haven’t seen this kind of magic before,” He admitted. “I can see the runes channeling the power, but I don’t recognize their origin. And they are… odd. They seem to exist in two places at once, overlapping layers held just out of alignment between the silver and blue crystals.”

“We found something similar,” The woman breathed excitedly. “I can’t see these runes you speak of, but Angela’s work indicated that when the crystals are held in this formation they force the silver crystals to exist in a different quantum reality from ours. When you separate them, the silver crystals relax back to our quantum state. Why can’t I see the runes?” She frowned up at him.

“Your human sight is limited,” Loki dismissed her question. “So it is the pattern of the crystals as well as the runes working together to complete the spell.” He mused. Interesting. This indicated that these creatures were advanced well beyond the mindless predators he had seen them behave as so far. But then why were they acting so? Had this been a coordinated attack taking advantage of the tesseract to invade Midgard? Or had they been sucked here by accident and panicking now that they found themselves in a new realm? Their behavior indicated the latter.

“Can you unlimit my sight so I can see the runes?” She requested, a little awe creeping into her voice. He smiled at her curiosity. He could, but he didn’t see how that would benefit him so he ignored her question and moved on.

“How did you manage to use magic you know nothing about to destroy your attackers?” He asked instead. He was genuinely interested in her response now. The woman may be ignorant of magic, but she had deduced enough about how it worked in a relatively short amount of time using only her primitive scientific techniques. He was intrigued.

“I found that if there was a power source connected between the flesh and the crystals, then it would draw on that energy and start to charge. It happened first with the oscillator. It stopped when the circuits blew and broke the connection.” She winced before continuing. “The rest was just a guess. Stevens’ team couldn’t hold off those things. We were all going to die. I took a chance and hooked about a thousand volts to the sample.” She gestured to two large cylinders with cables dangling from them on the floor. “I figured that might be enough energy to cause the crystals to discharge. And it was.”

“More than enough, I would say,” He affirmed, surveying the rubble at the other end of the room. Clever, clever, he mused, seeing the woman in a new light. This one was neither dull nor stupid. She may even be an asset to him. It led him to share more than he otherwise would with a mortal.

“Then I would guess that the patterns of the crystals and the runes work together to channel the energy of these creatures. That gives them their power.”

“We have other pieces of these things too. There are significant differences.” She was excited now. The woman turned, surprised to see that they had gathered a small audience. She regained her composure quickly. “Do any of you still have the other pieces I collected?” She asked. Loki rolled his eyes when there was only a shuffling of feet. Had this woman been the only one of the civilians to keep her wits about her?

He strode over to the rubble, pulled out a knife and hacked five tentacles in quick succession off the crushed bodies of several creatures. Remembering her warning not to touch the pieces, he gathered them in a simple energy shield and brought them back to the table. He deposited them on the counter next to the other tentacle. She quickly began sorting them into two piles and then stepped back so Loki could see.

The first pile held only two tentacles – the original sample and a new piece. They both had the same shimmering runes. He turned to the other pile and examined it. Using his knife, he carefully separated them into two more piles.

“Runes of protection,” He announced, indicating the first group. “Runes of healing,” He pointed to the second. He frowned down at the woman. “How can you tell the difference between the powerful runes and the others?”

“The powerful ones make me dizzy when I look at them. They did the same to Angela,” She pointed to a small woman lurking in the background. “She’s the one who discovered the quantum signatures. I just pumped energy into them and got lucky. How can you tell the difference between the others?” The woman nudged him out of the way unceremoniously as she moved to get a closer look at the two groups. Loki indulged her. He could appreciate a fascination with discovery as it drove many of his own studies.

He looked over her shoulder as she studied them and wondered. This woman and at least one other could detect the presence of sorcery in at least one form. Were they innately sensitive to magic or was it simply a lizard brain response to the feeling of otherness they possessed? The woman shook her head in frustration after a moment.

“If I look closely, I can see a difference in the patterns, but nothing else. I would have thought these markings were just natural. And how can you tell the difference?” She glanced up and back at him, frowning. “Is it because you can read these runes?” Loki smiled fiercely down at her. She had caught that incongruity fast. Impressive.

“There are certain patterns to basic spells. Even if I can’t read the runes directly, I recognize their sequence and intent.” She nodded and turned back to the crystals, studying them fiercely. Loki wondered if she was trying to make the runes appear to her by force of will.

“Stevens, report!” The radio made them both turn their heads to the lead agent.

“We’re okay for now,” Stevens replied, eyeing Loki as if he was going to make a lie out of her words. “What’s the status on that backup?”

“On their way. Should be there in less than two minutes.” Hill informed her. “They’ll bring you back to Central Command. You can dump the scientists here and then we’ll send you out to hunt the rest of those things down with proper equipment.”

“Roger that,” Stevens replied and looked around at her mismatched group. “Pack up and get ready to move.”

The woman was looking up at Loki when he turned his head back. They were still standing close, her back brushing his armor here and there.

“I must go to Thor,” He told her, a trace of regret in his tone. His interaction with her had been oddly pleasant. He hadn’t had a conversation that wasn’t laced with blame or bitterness in the last several years. Not that he hadn’t earned it. But it had been easy to talk with this woman. Calming despite the topic. He would have liked to continue their exploration of these creatures. She was sharp, intelligent, and not easily cowed. He cupped his hands lightly on her shoulders.

“Stay safe.” He commanded her sharply. Her eyes widened fractionally at his touch.

“You, too, Loki of Asgard,” She replied firmly, her own command in return.

He grinned at her sharply and left.


	4. Chapter 4

   “I can’t believe you spoke to him!” Angela whispered hoarsely. They were travelling through the dark compound on the way to Central Command. The eerie flashing of the emergency lights made shadows jump across the walls. It was making Corinne even more nervous. She expected tentacles to appear each time the lights blinked back on. There were only four scientists left after their battle, and they were huddled in a tight group surrounded by a dozen SHIELD agents who were armed to the teeth and leading them at a slow crawl through the corridors. Only Stevens and one other member of the original team had survived the attack. But mourning would come later. First they had to survive.

“Who?” Corinne asked, baffled. All of her senses were focused in the present, the adrenaline by now a familiar zing in her veins. She spared Angela a momentary glance before turning her vision back to scanning the corridor. She wasn’t inclined to conversation at the moment. Stealth seemed the better tactic.

“ _Loki_ ,” Angela hissed in the dark. Corinne shrugged and continued moving.

“It was necessary,” Was her curt reply. Admittedly, Loki had terrified her when she first saw him in the tesseract theater, but her bar for terror had been raised substantially in the last several hours. Hell, Loki fell into the safe category at the moment. She would prefer to have him protecting her right now rather than the SHIELD agents. At least he seemed to understand the magic these creatures possessed. It was possible he could counter it. Whatever skills he had were probably more effective than the machine guns and grenades that the soldiers were carrying. Sure, SHIELD had more effective weapons, but she imagined they were limited in what they could use in such close quarters.

They were vulnerable as they trekked through the hallways. The creatures had apparently figured out the trick about elevators so they were no longer safe. That meant it was stairways and long corridors. No lingering in the stairwells for fear of being trapped. Their lead soldier was a burly man, the kind you’d expect to see on some poster for military recruitment. He held a sensor display in front of him that could track the creatures. Apparently they had dispersed throughout the compound. SHIELD had yet to identify a pattern to their movements or a unified goal. That left them taking a circuitous route to Central Command, one determined by the need to avoid any encounters.

No one had seen Thor since he’d left the tesseract theater swearing vengeance. If would be good to have him here too, Corinne thought. Certainly that hammer of his would keep them safe.

The thought had Corinne gritting her teeth again. She loathed the lingering taste of impotence that was sticking in the back of her throat. It made her want to gag. She was a sheep among wolves, in need of coddling and protection. She was weak. Useless. She despised herself right now. Despised needing others to do the work of keeping her safe. She detested being a burden. Her brief taste of victory only left her feeling all the more bitter. She had served a purpose for one shining moment and now it was over. If only she had had more time with the stupid samples she might have been able to convert her discovery into a true weapon. As it was, the baggies of tentacles were just taking up space in the backpack she wore. Also useless.

“What the –?” The lead soldier stopped in the corridor, and they all followed suit. Weapons were raised, lights shining up and down the halls, bouncing off the walls and inset doorways. Corinne crouched, ready to run if need be.

“What?” Stevens was beside the man, double checking the sensor. The man shook his head.

“I just saw one blip across the screen, but now it’s gone.” He continued scanning the area in case it reappeared. Corinne tensed and tried to take slow deep breaths rather than holding it. She scanned the area too, listening hard for the scratch and scrape that heralded the creatures. She heard nothing but the creak of the soldiers’ gear. The emergency lights continued their slow flashing, immune to the fear that was pumping through all of them.

The red flash came from above and behind, the ceiling crashing to the ground in a deafening blast. Corinne didn’t even think. She just ran. Soldiers were screaming behind her, caught in the avalanche of debris. She heard their screams turn to shrieks and the sickening crunch of bodies being snapped up by waving tentacles. She took the corner at a full out sprint, careening off the wall while she made the turn.

“Down, now!” The words snapped her out of her panic. Stevens was already crouched on the ground at the corner, gun at the ready. Corinne stopped and then crashed to the floor as a body ran her over. She grabbed Angela’s ankle as the woman went by, pulling her down next to her. She didn’t know what Stevens had planned, but she knew enough to listen to her commands.

The grenades lit up the entire floor when they went off, shaking the walls around them and sending debris careening down the chute of the corridor. Fragments of metal, crystal, and body parts blew over them as the blast escaped into the T-junction where they huddled. Corinne covered her head with her hands waiting for the pain of shrapnel to hit her.

Darkness returned. Corinne slowly lifted her head and looked around. Surprisingly, she was unharmed. Stevens was still in position, pressed against the wall, her weapon raised as she scanned the area. Cautiously, Corinne moved into a sitting position. She could see the lead soldier and three of his men crouched at the other end of the T-junction. Six of them. Shit, was that all there was left? One attack had taken out more than half the team. Only her position towards the front of the group had saved her from being one of the unfortunates who had been caught under the beast. Survival was pure luck at this point. They may never make it back to Central Command alive.

There was no time to recover. No time to ponder the fleeting nature of existence. Corinne’s eyes widened as a glittering, lurching figure turned the corner of their new corridor. It was at the far end, coming towards them in a quick click and scrape. Corinne raised her arm and pointed. Stevens saw her, followed her direction, and immediately began pumping rounds into the creature as it slunk towards them. The other three soldiers joined in the fray, but it barely slowed the thing down.

“Move!” Stevens commanded, and Corinne was on her feet, pulling Angela up with her, and making for the end of the hall where another turn in the maze promised protection and maybe a chance to hide. Angela lurched in her grasp, one foot dragging as Corinne tried to force her to flee.

“I can’t,” She moaned, pain and fear lacing her voice. “My leg.”

“You can!” Corinne commanded her, pulling with all her might. The strafing gun fire filled the hallway, the creature’s screeching pummeling her ears as it came closer. “We have to run!” They were moving too slow, she realized, but her adrenaline was there to aid her. Angela was petite, probably only a hundred pounds soaking wet. Corinne slung an arm around the woman’s waist and practically carried her around the corner to the blessed emptiness of the next hallway.

Human screams began echoing behind them. _Shit!_ Corinne scanned the hall frantically. It looked like all the rest – pale walls with anonymous doors interspersed. No places to hide. Frantically, she began jiggling the handle of each door they came to, hoping that one would open and provide cover before the creature got to them next. _Fucking SHIELD security_ , she cursed. All of these doors required some sort of key card to access them. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. That thing was coming for them. It was closer, she could feel it.

The fifth door she tried opened unexpectedly, and they fell through the doorway in a heap. Corinne jerked up and closed the door as quickly and quietly as she could behind them. It was pitch dark in here. Not even the comfort of the flashing lights to illuminate their surroundings. She and Angela huddled together, praying they hadn’t been spotted. Their harsh breathing was loud in the darkness. Corinne pressed her ear to the door and listened. The gun fire was slowing. A pair of booted feet rushed by them, pounding hard on the tiled floor. Frantic scraping followed a few seconds later. She jerked her head away as tentacles hit their door hard enough to dent it. But it held, and the creature moved on in pursuit of whoever was still alive.

The seconds felt like hours as they ticked by, Corinne’s ear to the door again as she strained to hear if anything else was in the corridor. A low moan from Angela finally drew her attention.

“What’s wrong?” Corinne hissed, feeling for her friend in the darkness. She met a trembling shoulder and squeezed in an effort to give comfort.

“M-my leg,” Angela gasped. “Something hit my thigh. Won’t stop bleeding.”

“Fuck,” Corinne hissed. She slung off her backpack and dug out a flashlight. The beam illuminated a small utility closet, neatly stacked with cleaning supplies. At least SHIELD didn’t keep their janitorial necessities under high security or else they’d be dead right now. She slid her beam along the wall by the door and spotted a light switch. She put her flashlight down, quickly removed her lab coat and stuffed it in the crack under the door. She needed to see how badly Angela was injured, but she didn’t want to give away their hiding place with a strip of light blaring into the corridor. If the light even still worked with the base on lockdown.

Luck was with them. The light came on when Corinne flipped the switch. Her eyes widened when she saw Angela and the pool of blood that was spreading beneath her. An inch thick piece of metal protruded from her left thigh. Corinne dropped to her back pack and began rummaging for the first aid kit she had stuffed in there a lifetime ago. As she dug for it, the emergency radio that SHIELD had given her clattered to the floor. She had totally forgotten about it in their mad rush for safety. She popped the ear bud in and flipped the radio on at the same time she began tearing open the plastic surrounding the first aid kit.

“Hello,” She whispered frantically into the microphone dangling by her jaw as she began laying out gauze pads and scissors. “Is anyone there?”

“This is Central Command. We read you. Who is this?” Corrinne almost cried in relief. They weren’t alone. There was still a chance they could get out of this alive.

“This is Corrinne… um, Dr. Dale, one of the scientists from the tour,” She fumbled with the words, shuffling closer to Angela and shoving gauze pads over the wound. They immediately soaked with blood and were overwhelmed. Cursing, Corinne pulled off her blazer and held it to the wound instead, pressing hard to staunch the bleeding. Angela howled in pain at the pressure.

“What’s going on?” The voice at the other end was urgent now.

“We were attacked. Separated,” Corinne explained breathlessly, searching through the kit for some kind of pain reliever. She couldn’t have Angela screaming and accidentally giving their location away. “I’m in a utility closet with Dr. Hu. She’s hurt. Bleeding badly. I can’t move her.”

“What’s your twenty?” The man asked.

“My twenty?” She asked in confusion.

“Your location,” The man sounded exasperated. _Well, fuck him_ , Corinne thought. She was exasperated too.

“I told you, we’re in a utility closet,” She gritted out. “I have to give Angela something for the pain, but I don’t recognize the syringes in your first aid kit. What can I give her to keep her quiet that won’t kill her?”

“Blue syringe,” Came the answer. “Inject it near the wound. It’ll dull the pain and slow the bleeding.”

“OK, got it,” Corinne popped the cap off of the tip, moved her sopping blazer aside, and carefully injected the liquid near the protrusion. She watched Angela’s face anxiously. After a few seconds, the wrinkles in her brow began to smooth and her lips relaxed. Corinne returned the blazer and continued to apply pressure.

“What floor are you on?” The voice crackled in her ear.

“I have no idea,” Corinne responded frantically. “Can’t you pinpoint us through the radio?”

“GPS doesn’t work underground, ma’am. It’s not magic.”

“Fuck,” She breathed. “Someone needs to come get Angela. She won’t last long like this. She took a piece of metal through her thigh. A big one. Looks like a freaking rod stuck in there.”

“Don’t remove it,” The voice cautioned her.

“I’m not a fucking idiot,” She snapped back. That rod might be the only thing keeping Angela’s femoral artery from erupting and killing her within seconds. No way was she pulling that thing out.

“We need to know what floor you’re on if we’re to send help,” The voice was beginning to piss her off.

“And how do you propose I figure that out?” She snorted. “Just duck outside and start reading off room numbers?”

“That won’t help, ma’am. We use repeating numbers to foil any attempts at espionage. You’re going to have to locate an elevator or stairwell and find the floor number that way.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” She barked.

“No, ma’am. Just –,” Corinne ripped the radio away and threw it across the floor in a rage. She’d heard enough. SHIELD wasn’t going to help them. They were on their own. Two women, one seriously injured, with no weapons and no training, trapped underground while one of them bled to death.

She crawled over to Angela. Her face was pale, beads of sweat coating her upper lip.

“How you doing?” She asked softly.

“Just dandy,” Angela tried for a weak smile. Corinne gripped the woman’s hand and squeezed.

“I’m going to have to take a closer look at this,” She informed her. “Might be some way I can bind it and stop the bleeding. It’s probably going to hurt like hell.” Angela shook her head weakly.

“Whatever you gave me made me numb from the hips down. Can’t feel a thing.”

“Good, that’s good,” Corinne nodded as she slowly pulled her blazer away. The wound was ugly. The skin around the metal bar was black and blue and shredded. The bleeding had slowed, but was still pumping out at an alarming rate. She was no medical doctor, but even she knew that the situation was dire. How much longer would Angela last at this rate? Certainly not long enough for SHIELD to find them.

_It’s not magic._ The sentence flitted through her mind, and she turned to spy the baggies of tentacles strewn across the floor. Well, she did have magic according to Loki. _Runes_ _of healing_ , he had said. She snatched up the bag holding those samples. She didn’t have her gloves with her anymore, and she didn’t relish handling the pieces bare handed, but she didn’t see a choice. She ripped the bag open and pulled out one of the ‘healing’ tentacles.

It was just as disgusting as she imagined. Cold, rubbery flesh with whatever passed for blood in those things congealed to the ends. It was sticky and squishy as she stretched it to examine the pattern. The crystals gleamed enigmatically in the fluorescent light.

So how did one go about using magic? She wondered. ‘Runes’ implied that the spell was written on the crystals, perhaps even held within them. Could she transfer the crystals to Angela and still have them retain their power? Would they heal her? Well, there was only one way to find out. She pulled a scalpel from the first aid kit and went to Angela. She carefully sliced her pants around the wound and pulled the fabric down to expose her to below the knee. She slapped the blazer back into place.

“Hold this on the wound,” She commanded softly. Angela nodded and complied.

Corinne turned back to the tentacle. She considered slicing it in half and placing it against Angela’s skin. She shook her head. No way was she slapping that thing on Angela’s leg. Too freaking gross. She would have to find a way to get the crystals off the tentacle and replace them in the exact same order on her friend’s leg and hope that worked. She hissed in frustration. There were easily a hundred crystals here. That would take too long. Her friend would be dead by then.

She carefully examined the end of the tentacle, probing it with the scalpel to see how the crystals were attached to the flesh. After some careful lifting and prodding, a bubble appeared between the flesh and the crystals. She frowned and sliced it. It stayed open and a slightly opaque layer leaved open on the flesh. She stuck her finger in warily and started to push under to expand the area. She had her entire finger in now, prodding carefully underneath as the crystals separated from the flesh and began to peel off in a single sheath held together by the opaque material.

She gasped. This material felt fundamentally different from the cold squishiness of the tentacle. It flexed, but held. It felt woven, not organic. Were the creatures _wearing_ the crystals? Like some sort of armor? Corinne pulled her finger out of the hole and began carefully slicing around the crystals with her scalpel. When she was finished, she grasped the peeled up area and carefully lifted the entire mass of crystals in a single sheath from the flesh beneath. She stared in awe as they glittered before her.

Now _this_ she could work with. Corinne grabbed the tube of skin glue from the first aid kit and scooted over to Angela with the crystals held high in her other hand.

“What are you doing?” Angela slurred, staring in horror at the crystals.

“Magic,” Corinne replied, hoping to hell that this was going to make a difference. Angela was fading fast. If this didn’t work, her friend was going to die.

“Crazy,” Angela murmured, and her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she lost consciousness.

This _was_ crazy, Corinne admitted as she cracked the tube of glue and squirted it below the wound in a wide swathe. She was a scientist, not a magician. Since when had she started believing in sorcery?

Well, she didn’t. Not really. Magic was just science that had yet to be explained, yada, yada, yada. And desperate times called for desperate measures. The worst that could happen was that the crystals didn’t work, and Angela died anyway. This was the only thing she could think to do.

She laid the crystals deliberately along the glue, careful not to wrinkle or stretch the pattern. She pressed them into place carefully, and sat back to watch. Nothing happened. The crystals just glittered inertly against Angela’s skin, merely a gruesome decoration as the blood continued to flow and finally surround them.

_Fuck_ , Corinne swore in frustration. Of course this harebrained idea hadn’t worked. What had she been thinking? That one brief conversation with a psychopathic sorcerer made her an expert in magic? Loki could have been lying to her for all she knew. Toying with the humans for sport. From what she’d heard, he wouldn’t be above that kind of thing.

As she stared the crystals began to glow faintly. She hadn’t noticed at first in the reflection from the fluorescent light, but now that she looked more closely, she could see them flickering in the blood that flowed around them. The blood began to coagulate around the crystals, turning a dark brown that began to flow up to the wound itself. Corinne watched in amazement as the blood flowing from the wound slowed and then stopped. _Holy shit._ It was working. She had used magic!

Energized by her success, Corinne went for the other bags of tentacles, her mind awhirl with possibilities. With Angela stabilized she had options. She had to get to the stairs and let SHIELD know where they were, but she didn’t want to go out there unprotected and unarmed. And she didn’t have to. She rotated the bag containing the mind bending tentacles in her hands considering. Could she use the same technique as she had used with the healing crystals on the weaponized ones? She hadn’t dared to touch them with her bare hands yet. It was a risky idea to consider, but her options were limited. She could either huddle in a closet hoping that none of those creatures spotted her and that SHIELD would ultimately win the battle, or she could take care of herself.

That made her decision incredibly easy. Corinne loathed her helpless state. Despised this need to rely on others to ensure her safety. It was time she took control of her own destiny. Fuck this helpless rabbit shit.

Despite the tough talk, she hesitated before opening the bag. Loki had said that the crystals were channeling the creatures’ energy. What if hers was too different to be channeled? Even worse, what if they channeled all her energy at once and killed her?

It was a risk she was willing to take. She was willing to do just about anything to stop this cloying terror that sucked at her every breath. She couldn’t continue this way. The constant fear, the constant rage, the continuous sense of helplessness. If she had even one chance of this working, she was going to take it. She took a deep breath and carefully reached for one of the tentacles, grasping it by the skin only. She paused. No tingling in her fingers, no flaring of the crystals. So far, so good. She lifted it from the bag and got to work with her scalpel, careful to keep from touching the skin and the crystals at the same time. She laid the long strip of crystals across a line of gauze pads. Looking at them still made her dizzy, so the pattern was probably still intact. Step one, complete.

Attaching the crystals to her arm was a separate challenge. The small tube of skin glue was nearly empty, and the strip of crystals would cover her from the bottom of her fingers to her elbow. She decided on a long strip of glue down the middle of her forearm and then pieces of surgical tape to hold the rest in place. It was far from ideal, but it would have to do.

Maneuvering the sheath of crystals onto her arm was another challenge she hadn’t completely thought through. It was frustrating and time consuming, but when she finally examined the strip of crystals glowing on her forearm, she was satisfied. They still made her dizzy, they hadn’t killed her (yet), and there was still the possibility that she could harness their power as a weapon of her own design. She carefully finished anchoring the sheath with tape and then held her arm out, relishing a blast of energy emanating from her fingertips.

She was sadly disappointed. She stared at the crystals and they just stared back. Nothing.

_Fuck._

Plan B. Maybe she had to commune with the crystals or something. She’d had a new age hippie friend take her to a daylong meditation retreat once. Maybe she needed to focus her energy on them. She flipped the lights off and sat in the dark, composing herself and picturing her energy flowing into the crystals. It took a long time of feeling foolish, but eventually she felt a tingle in her arm. She opened her eyes to see the crystals gently glowing in the darkness. A little more focus, a mental ‘push’ so to speak, and the crystals flared brighter zooming from faint bluish silver to white and emitting a spark that blasted off the door and jerked a surprised scream from her. With her concentration broken, the crystals immediately dimmed.

Corinne turned the light back on. Angela was still unconscious, and the ricocheting spark hadn’t hit her. There was a scorch mark on the door and she could smell ozone. Unbelievable. She had just used magic. She did a victory fist punch in the air. Let those fuckers come for her now. She was ready for them. She grabbed up the radio and earpiece, repacked her bag, and prepared to go find the stairs.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Armed or not, the glowing corridors were still creepy.

Corinne tiptoed through the building, slinking close to the walls to avoid being a target if any of those creatures came around a corner. Her bravado at using magic had evaporated twenty feet into the quiet corridor. Now she was running on pure adrenaline and determination. She had no freaking idea where the stairs were, and she wasn’t about to turn on a flashlight and take the chance of drawing attention to herself. She came to the end of the corridor and searched left and right. The right side seemed to stretch on for ages in the dim flashing of the lights, but the left seemed to end after another fifty feet or so. She decided on the path with a visible destination.

And she got lucky. Finally. She depressed the handle at the end of the corridor, and it opened into a maze of stairs. She closed the door quietly behind her and examined the door. She flipped on the radio and whispered into the microphone.

“This is Corinne again. Do you read me?”

“We read you. Do you know where you are?”

“Level thirteen, west stairwell.” She replied, relieved that she had made it. Help would be there soon. Her crazy ideas had saved both Angela and herself.

“That’s not good,” The voice countered urgently. “We show a large mass coming up fast from level twenty and several of the creatures moving on your floor. You need to head up. Now!”

Corinne didn’t even bother to respond. She just started flying up the stairs, feet pounding hard on the wire mesh grids of the stairs. She didn’t look back, didn’t think, she just kept running. A couple turns in and she heard scratching and clicking rising up below her. They were gaining. Fast. She pushed herself harder and breathed into the radio.

“Safe floor?”

“Central Command is the only floor that is clear right now. Head for level one.”

_Shit_. That was not good news. Her speed was nothing compared to the creatures’. They were going to catch her. And maybe if it was just one of them, she would have the nerve to stand her ground and try to attack them with her new ‘weapon’. She did not want to make her virgin run against a horde of them.

Two more twists of the stairs and Corinne could see the harsh reflection of glowing crystals pulsing up to her in time to the emergency lights. They were maybe two floors below her now, and she was nowhere near close enough to the first floor to make it to safety before they caught her.

Virgin run it would be then, she decided. At least she would go down fighting. At least she wouldn’t die a rabbit. She turned at the top of what would be her final set of stairs and held her arm out, trying to find that centered part of her that had infused the crystal sheath with energy earlier. Her concentration was suddenly broken by a roughly barked command.

“Run!”

Corinne’s eyes flew open, and there was Loki at the bottom of her flight of stairs, golden helmet gleaming in the flashing lights. He was a twist or two ahead of the creatures, but they were gaining. Before she had time to react, Loki was upon her. His shoulder hit her square in the gut, and she was over his shoulder, bouncing against his back as he continued his mad rush up the stairs.

She flopped in shock for a moment at her sudden reprieve. But looking down the stairs as she was, she realized that this wasn’t a reprieve at all. The creatures were still coming, and if Loki was running, that meant he was outmatched.

She held her gleaming arm out again, trying to reach for that calm center. But between the creatures’ screeching, the energy bolts starting to ricochet off the walls, and the constant jostling, it was nowhere to be found. Corinne gritted her teeth and tried again. This had to work. _It had too_. She did not come all this way to be rescued like some damsel in distress. She did not go through all the trouble of making a weapon only to fail at using it when her life depended on it.

Tentacles snaked up the stairs, missing Loki’s pounding boots by only a couple of steps. In a few moments they would be close enough to snag his ankle, and then they would both go down. Terror spurted in her chest, but uncontrollable rage followed on it hard. The two emotions condensed as a hard knot in her chest and flooded out of her mouth uncontrollably.

She rampaged over Loki’s shoulder. She would not die like this. She would not die as a useless piece of luggage. She would not die a victim. She was screaming at the creatures to leave her alone, screaming at her stupid fucking arm to start blasting everything to hell, screaming at Loki to move faster.

She was so focused on her torrent that she missed the tingling in her arm. Abruptly, her entire arm lit up in a retina frying blue-white blaze. Everything moved too fast from that point. Searing pain shot up her arm, a massive bolt of energy blotted out her vision, and an imaginary hammer hit her square between the eyes taking her consciousness with it.

 

Loki let the kick from the energy blast propel him to the top of the stairs. He turned at the landing to see melted stairs and shattered remains stretching for floors below him. Random patches of fire lit the walls and smoking crystals drifted down around him in a dark snowfall.

What in the Norns had happened?

And what were the chances that this raging little mortal had something to do with it? He grinned fiercely. He would not underestimate her a second time. His shock at seeing her at the top of the stairs had been fleeting given the danger. She was considerably worse for wear – lab coat gone, hair a tousled tail streaming past her shoulders, but his eyes had fixated on her arm. It was covered in crystals that called to him in the dimness. She had made herself powerful.

He entered the nearest floor cautiously. It was dim and quiet for the moment. The woman was a limp weight on his shoulder. Did she yet live? He forced open the first door he found and ducked inside. It was an office with a small divan against the wall. He carefully laid her on the sofa and crouched down to examine her.

Her chest rose and fell as she breathed. Not dead then, merely unconscious. He lifted her left arm and called a light to him so he could examine it more closely. The sleeve of crystals was shoddily applied, but the runes remained intact. In fact, they were slowly changing as he watched. Shifting subtly while the crystals were gradually moving from ice blue to a deeper, richer color. He raised an eyebrow in surprise. If he was reading this correctly, the crystals and runes were adapting to suit her biology.

She must have expended an enormous amount of energy to generate such a powerful blast in the stairwell. Had she injured herself permanently? He lifted his attention to her face. Was she perhaps in a coma? He placed two fingers against her temple and skimmed the outermost layer of her consciousness. Terror reigned there coupled with a fierce rage that he could appreciate. He startled a little when her hand unexpectedly gripped his wrist and her eyes flew open.

 

Consciousness returned to Corinne in a crashing wave. Where was she? Was she safe? Her eyes met Loki’s in the half light. Why was he so close? And why was he touching her? It was instinct to grab his wrist, but his hand didn’t move when she tried to pull him away.

“Did it work?” She asked him hoarsely. She remembered the feeling of the crystals igniting, but her mind was blank after that.

“Oh, it worked, Mortal,” His grin was more a baring of teeth. “You have quite a bit of explaining to do.” His hand left her temple and slid down her arm slowly as he raised it. The gentleness of his touch surprised her. He raised her arm as he traveled down the length of the crystal sheath and entwined his fingers with her own as he extended her arm before them.

“This is the shoddiest sorcery work I have ever seen,” He commented dryly as he turned her arm and examined her efforts. “I’m surprised you got this to work at all.” His words jerked a quick chortle out of her.

“You and me both,” She huffed, grinning up at him. “I don’t even believe in magic.” He arched one elegant eyebrow at her statement and then turned back to her arm.

“Let’s fix this, shall we?” He murmured quietly. His other hand encircled her forearm and slid slowly down the sheath. Corinne could feel it tightening and aligning to her arm. The strips of surgical tape she had used to hold the crystals in place fluttered to the floor. A low thrumming started in her arm. Not enough to be annoying, but certainly enough to know that something about her was different.

“What did you do?” She breathed softly as she took in her forearm. “And why are the crystals changing color?”

“I attached the spell work to you properly,” He explained, examining her arm closely. He touched the crystals cautiously and finally ran one finger down them from her elbow to the top of her hand. She could feel his touch through the crystals, tingling and bright against the magic.

“As for the changing colors,” His clear gaze met hers. “That is all you.” Corinne raised an eyebrow in imitation of his earlier expression.

“Explain.”

“When you forced your will on the spell it had to change to meet your energy and biology. Clearly you are fundamentally different from the original owner. These changes reflect that difference.” Loki explained thoughtfully. “The energy bolt you created was blue, not the red we have seen so far. I am not sure of all you will be able to do with this. It will be interesting to find out.”

Corinne was torn. She was fascinated by these changes. The scientist in her couldn’t wait to form and test hypotheses regarding her new found power. And the sudden realization that she no longer had to be a victim; that she had her own agency and power in this situation was heady. But another part of her worried. Would there be side effects from being hooked to a power like this? Would it change her in some unalterable way?

“I’ll be able to remove these when we are out of danger, right?” She asked hopefully. Loki frowned at her, eyebrows pulling down in disapproval.

“You would merely give such power away?” He reproved fiercely. “Would you simply turn it over to SHIELD to bastardize as they please?”

“I – No,” She stuttered. “I haven’t thought that far into the future. And I don’t trust SHIELD with something like this. Look how they’ve kept the tesseract a secret.” She explained quickly. Loki snorted.

“Those are the wisest words you’ve spoken yet,” He retorted. “What is your concern then?” He was looking at her with contempt now, their brief rapport apparently broken.

“I am afraid this will harm me if I keep it,” Corinne explained. “It’s one thing to try magic in a desperate situation. It’s quite another to live with something that may kill me over time.” Loki’s frown eased and he relaxed fractionally.

“I forget how fragile you mortals are,” He acknowledged with a sigh. “I cannot say what the long term effects of this will be on you.” He shook his head as he pondered. “It doesn’t seem to be causing you any harm now. We will only know if there are consequences as time passes.”

Corinne pushed into a sitting position to distance herself from Loki and his touch. Loki’s outburst reminded her that he wasn’t some benevolent god with a desire to help her. He was a criminal, possibly a psychopath, who had tried to rule Earth with his own goddamn army. They may have been thrown together by circumstance, but that didn’t mean she should give him her blind trust. Loki moved to give her room as she swung her legs to the floor, but his hands were still lightly examining the crystal sheath on her arm.

“Why aren’t you still in Asgard?” She asked him suspiciously. “Aren’t you supposed to be imprisoned there?” She wondered what his imprisonment entailed. Was he living like Sisyphus with his eternal boulder? Or Prometheus having his liver pecked out every day?

Loki smiled secretly as he heard the mortal’s thoughts. His spell still lingered. He could hear strong thoughts from her as long as they remained in contact.

“Nothing so ghastly,” He admitted lightly, not making eye contact with her. “I am merely imprisoned until Odin believes I have learned my lesson.”

A wave of unadulterated desolation and heartbreaking regret washed over Corinne as Loki spoke, completely at odds with his flippant comment. Absolute loss, utter abandonment, wrenching anguish. She jerked her arm from his touch at the same time that Loki yanked his fingers away. Those feelings had come from Loki. Her shock had her staring at the back of his helm in the half-light. He was stiff before her, his back rigid and tense. He clearly knew she had felt his emotions, and he was not pleased to be so exposed.

How had she felt his emotions like that? And, Hell, was this what he lived with every day? How did he bear it? Experiencing even a moment of that soul crushing deprivation brought on a rush of poignant sadness so strong that she felt tears prick her eyes. They sat in silence for a long moment, neither of them willing to admit what had passed between them.

“My sentence has been temporarily commuted until I bring Thor back to Asgard,” Loki finally spoke, standing abruptly and turning to face her. He was all business again, the arrogant mask back in place, his voice haughty. “And I have no time to care for a mortal if I am to succeed.” Corinne nodded slowly. She understood. She wouldn’t want to be in the presence of someone who had seen her innermost turmoil either.

“Where is Thor?” She asked, lifting her head to meet his cold gaze.

“Seventh floor,” Loki ground out. “I believe he has been captured by a large pack of them. The creatures are beginning to converge there.”

“And you are off to free him,” She finished softly, looking him in eyes that failed to meet hers. He nodded once in assent.

“Take yourself back to the other mortals,” He ordered her with a sneer. “Hide there with them and pray that we are victorious.”

Corinne stiffened at his command. Loki was forcing her back into the roles of victim and incompetent bystander. She had had her fill of being helpless and useless. She would not go back to that willingly. She hadn’t experimented with forces beyond her understanding, hadn’t turned herself into a weapon just to be offhandedly dismissed. Loki’s emotional discomfort was the least of her concerns right now. She would not pander to it.

“No.” She replied calmly, standing to meet him. “I am coming with you.” Her eyes met his unflinchingly as he snarled down at her.

“Foolish mortal,” He rebuked her. “One successful use of magic does not make you a sorcerer or a soldier. You will be a liability. You will die.” Corinne felt her blood boil at his imperious tone.

“Foolish god,” She snapped back. “You were clearly outmatched in the stairwell. If I hadn’t been there, you would have been defeated. And now you propose to attack a horde of them alone. Thor is clearly incapacitated, otherwise we would be able to hear the battle from here. Your odds of success on your own are slim.” She took a deep breath and pressed on, stating the reality of her situation as much for herself as Loki.

“I die in either scenario. I either die trying to free Thor with you, or I die after you fail and those things come for us in Central Command. When those creatures break in there it will just be machine guns and grenades, neither of which have been particularly effective. So it will just be me and my sorcery against them. No one there will be able to help me use or control this magic. But you can. You can teach me enough that I will be able to serve as a distraction or a decoy when you go for Thor. It will increase your chances of winning.” She was breathless with outrage now, and so focused on her tirade that she hadn’t noticed the light in the room increasing steadily as she laid out her argument.

But Loki noticed. He shifted his gaze to her crystalline arm. It was glowing cerulean and silver, pulsing with her anger. He took a quick step to the side and pointed to the desk behind him.

“Destroy it.” He directed her coldly, flinging his arm toward the unlucky piece of furniture. The mortal didn’t even hesitate, just lifted her arm and let a bolt fly that blew the metal into shrapnel that billowed throughout the room. Loki shielded them from injury with a thought, the deadly pieces glancing off harmlessly.

He studied the woman critically, looking for any signs of physical weakness from channeling her energy into the crystals. She stood firm beside him, only her look of surprise giving away the fact that she was new to using magic.

“Holy shit,” She breathed, lowering her arm. The crystals dimmed, leaving them in near darkness.

“It appears they respond to your emotions,” He explained thoughtfully. Loki was turning scenarios around in his mind. The mortal’s reasoning was not incorrect. Her chances of surviving this situation were slim to nil. These creatures had bested him and Thor. She could be useful in the fight that was to come, could perhaps be the unexpected factor that tipped the scales. Whatever sorcery the sleeve contained, it was powerful. How else to explain the turning of his spell back on him when he had probed her mind? She should never have been able to access his thoughts, but through his touch on the crystals, she had neatly seen every emotion that was buried so deeply in his heart that even Frigga couldn’t find them. He had felt them yanked from his mind despite his considerable defenses. She may be untutored, but she was powerful. She was no warrior, but the rage he knew lurked within her might very well be enough to see her through a battle.

“You will do exactly as I say, when I say it,” He gritted through clenched teeth as his eyes bored into hers. “There will be no deviation. If you put Thor or me in danger, I will kill you myself.” The mortal closed her gaping mouth and turned to him, steel in her spine.

“Deal.”

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Creeping through the SHIELD base with Loki was a very different experience compared to Corinne’s previous ones.

For one, Loki could cloak them from sight. He could also hear far better than she could. He knew when to duck into a door to prevent them from being discovered; he knew when it was safe to move out. They still crept through the empty base cautiously, but the fear of imminent discovery no longer dogged her every step. Unfortunately, the absence of terror clogging her throat was leaving too much time for self-reflection as she crept up the stairs behind Loki.

_What in the hell was she doing?_ Her rational mind screamed at her as they inched through the base. Loki was right: she was going to die when she went into battle with him. She should have taken his first offer and chosen to huddle in Central Command with the rest of the evacuees. It would be terrifying, and she would hate herself for her cowardice, but at least she would have had a chance of living through this. A very slim chance, but one nonetheless. It was one thing, she was realizing, to hate being a rabbit. It was another thing entirely to decide to be a wolf. She didn’t know if she had the inner strength to make that transformation.

Corinne gripped her left forearm with her right hand to center herself. She had the teeth of a wolf now, she reminded herself as her fingers ran over the pattern of crystals. She wasn’t just a rabbit playing pretend.

Her relationship with the magic had changed when Loki bound it to her. Before he had touched it, it had been simply dead weight jewelry strapped to her forearm. After he had finished, it had changed to a presence of which she was constantly aware. The low thrumming of awareness had disappeared when she had destroyed the desk. It had been replaced with the sense of having a living, sentient entity coexisting with her. She had felt its satisfaction when it had heeded her call to destroy. It had wanted to please her, and it was gratified to have done so. Now she could feel it listening to her, learning her breath, her heartbeat, her will. It was fascinating and eerie at the same time.

Corinne thought of it as a wary animal: eager for attention, but afraid of being abused. It was sniffing her out, deciding whether or not it could trust her. She gave to it as she would any frightened creature: she sent calm, soothing thoughts, she sent images of trust and friendship, and she focused on how pleased she was to have it with her. She had no idea if she was doing the right thing. Was this how magic was supposed to be? Was this normal? She gritted her teeth and stared at Loki’s cape as it swayed in front of her. The one person who could answer her questions was two feet away, and she couldn’t ask him. Time was tight, and silence was key. She had to do this on her own and hope that it worked.

Loki paused at the door to the eighth floor. He pushed the door open slowly and motioned her to follow him inside. He pulled her close once the door shut silently behind them. His hands were tight around her waist, and his breath was hot in her ear as he whispered to her.

“I am unsure of what we will find on the next floor. The goal is to go in undetected. I can keep us cloaked, but if they are watching the door they will notice the movement. If that happens, I want you to drop to the floor, roll out of my way, and let me handle the initial attack. Use your magic only if you have a clear shot, and use it sparingly. I am not sure how much you can use before it depletes your natural energy stores. Save as much as you can for the real battle.” Corinne nodded, her forehead brushing the cool metal of his helm in the darkness.

It was… odd to be held so intimately by Loki. Psychopath or not, he was undeniably beautiful. Tall, lithe, high cheekbones, and winged dark brows arching over his piercing green gaze; they all combined to create a beauty that could only be described as god-like. Corinne would not lie to herself – even she was susceptible to such beauty with her breasts crushed against his armor and his breath tickling her ear. But his touch was clinical. He was only pressing her tightly to his chest so they could communicate without being discovered. His hands held her with all the affection he would show an inanimate object. With her adrenaline running high and her senses heightened, it was too easy to imagine that he was showing her an affection that clearly did not exist. She shook her head briefly to clear her mind. Now was not the time for distraction.

“The crystals,” She whispered up to him. Loki leaned down so she could reach his ear now. She couldn’t help but noticed how his sleek, black hair puffed lightly in response to her breath. “I think they are a type of armor. They’re not organic to the creatures. That was why I could remove the crystals and use them for myself. I don’t know what your capabilities are, but if you can shear the crystals off those things, I believe you would remove the protection and power that they have. It might increase your chances of defeating them.” He nodded in acknowledgement against her.

“If we manage to get in without being discovered,” He continued, “We will take the layout of the area, find Thor, and determine a plan to free him. Remember, you are under my command. Do nothing except what I tell you to do.” Corinne nodded vigorously against him. She was no fool. He was the expert here. She would follow Loki’s directions to the letter.

Loki eased her away from him, and Corinne took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She stroked the crystals on her arm, sending them her need for power and success. They hummed under her fingers in a pleased response. She hoped that meant they were going to cooperate with her in the coming battle.

The final set of stairs passed all too quickly. Corinne stared at the red seven emblazoned on the door wondering what they would find behind it. How soon would her death come? Would she last long enough to test her power and help save Thor? Or would she die in the first thirty seconds under a wave of crushing tentacles? Loki’s hand unexpectedly squeezed her shoulder, and she looked up at him in surprise.

“I have saved Thor many, many times,” He said, a comforting smile on his lips. “Stay close and listen to your magic. It will help see you through.” Corinne nodded her thanks for the show of support, trying to still her shaking. Loki must be able to feel it through his touch. She didn’t want him to think her a coward even though every sane cell in her body was screaming at her to run away.

She reached out one hand to grasp Loki’s cape as he inched the door open to peek inside. She wanted to be sure she was close enough to be protected by his cloaking spell. After a long moment of eyeing the view through the crack in the door, Loki turned to her, nodded, and proceeded through the entrance. Corinne stuck close behind him, her heart hammering in her ears, and her left forearm starting to throb in what felt like anticipation.

They found themselves on a dim catwalk high above what appeared to have once served as a warehousing level, but the scene below them was so chaotic and alien to her that Corinne could only take it in as quick snapshots. Hundreds of roiling, glittering tentacles writhing across the floor below. Click. A manlike shape (Thor?) covered in the creatures at the far end of the room. Click. A large, strange, pulsating rectangle surrounded by crystals and creatures to the far left of the captured man. Click. The catwalk surrounding the entire scene below, apparently empty. Click.

“This is not good,” Loki breathed as he hurried them to the cover provided by a large pillar. Corinne simply blinked up at him. _No shit,_ was her only thought, but she wisely kept that to herself.

“They are building a portal,” He explained, ducking his head around the corner for a moment and dodging back.

“It’s not for going home, is it?” She asked, already knowing the answer. Loki’s grim look confirmed her suspicion.

“They cannot be allowed to complete it.” He hissed urgently. “We are outmatched as it is. A full scale invasion will be impossible to stop.” Corinne nodded in understanding, the magnitude of the possibility making her stomach drop somewhere below her knees.

“I am going to place you there,” Loki pointed to a pillar along the wall perpendicular to them, nearest the gate. “You will be distraction and damage. Destroy the portal at all costs. Once you begin it will create havoc. They will be determined to protect it. I will come from behind and take them while they are distracted. You will be in grave danger, but you must stay focused on that portal no matter what else happens. Do you understand?” He pinned her with his fierce gaze, his grip on her shoulders fierce.

“I understand,” Corinne replied firmly despite the lump in her throat. “How will I know when to begin?” He reached up and pressed two fingers to her temple for a second. A light tingling bloomed and quickly faded at his touch.

“You will hear my command when I am ready.”

“Will I hear anything else? Can we communicate through whatever you just did?” She asked. That would be helpful, but then again maybe Loki would just hear a litany of curses and terrified screaming from her during the battle. She had little doubt that was going to be the sum and total of her thoughts once this all began.

“No,” He replied with a tinge of regret. “I will not be able to hold the spell once we are engaged.”

“Okay then,” Corinne let out a long breath and took in the pillar that would likely be her final resting place. “Get me over there and let’s get this over with.” Her bravado was fake. She was sure Loki was aware of that as well; he was just kind enough not to mention it. His smile in response to her words was almost sad.

“Best of luck, Mortal,” He said, his hand cupping her cheek for a moment. “It has been… interesting meeting you.” She huffed in amusement at his description.

“I have a feeling things are always interesting with you,” She retorted lightly.

“Indeed,” He replied, his smile widening into one of genuine delight. “Shall we?” He flourished his arm as if he were leading her to a formal dinner. Corinne nodded and followed Loki to her fate.

 

Waiting sucked. Up until today, Corinne had only experienced that suckage in the everyday sense – waiting in lines while incompetent people fumbled their coffee orders, holding on the line for a customer service representative while listening to canned muzak. She thought she knew everything about how irritating it was to wait. Until today. Nothing, _nothing_ , held a candle to the levels of anxiety she was experiencing now as she waited for Loki to give her the signal to attack. She was crouched down behind the pillar of choice, back pressed against its cold metal surface as her knees wobbled, her palms sweated, and her pulse beat so furiously that she could feel it in her eyeballs.

And it wasn’t a quiet wait either. These creatures were loud. The click and scratch of their tentacles was a cacophony surrounding her. They screeched and sighed and moaned as they went about their business below. And the design of the space meant that the sounds echoed around her, coming from all directions. Any time a particularly loud or close sounding noise reached her, she flinched involuntarily. No, she was not born to wait like this. It was killing her.

A wave of reassurance flowed up her left arm to soothe her racing heart. Corinne stared down at the crystals in amazement. Were they trying to comfort her? Did magic have sentience? And did that mean that it had accepted her? If she lived through this, she vowed to pin Loki down and have him answer all of her questions. But until then…

She sent her thoughts back into the crystals, a wave of gratitude combined with a call to prepare for what was to come. The crystals lit effortlessly this time, racing to an azure glow that steadied and held in the dimness. Her surprise was only eclipsed by the joy that she could feel humming through the sheath. This magic wanted to serve her. It delighted in the prospect. She began to send it images of what she needed. She recalled the portal with its bubbling lavender surface, the creatures crawling and building a complex pattern of crystals around it. And then she envisioned them burning, decimated, being pummeled to ash and lifelessness. She visualized the mass of creatures writhing on the floor beneath her. She imagined the smell of them burning, their shrieks of terror, and the flames consuming them as they tried to escape.

_“NOW!”_

The word burst into Corinne’s brain like a thunderclap, startling her to her feet. She froze there for a moment, unable to move forward. She knew what she had to do. She knew the safety of the others in the base depended on her actions. But actually taking that first step, committing to her own death, held her in place. She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to die.

_Then don’t die_ , a voice whispered to her. She wasn’t sure if the thought came from her or Loki or the crystals encasing her forearm, but it was enough. She ducked around the pillar, lined her left arm up with the portal and sent her first, tentative blast at the portal.

It was disappointing to say the least. Oh, it got the creatures’ attention alright, but it just splashed harmlessly against the lavender entrance and died. _Shit!_ Where was all the power she imagined she had? She hadn’t even mustered the same amount of force that she’d used to blast that desk to pieces earlier. She had already ducked back behind her pillar, heart thumping and mind racing. She would be no good to anyone if she couldn’t do better. She would only die more quickly. She stared at the crystals surrounding her forearm. They were barely shimmering.

_They seem to respond to your emotions_ , she recalled Loki saying earlier. Okay, then. Put some force behind it this time. These things were trying to invade her planet. They had killed colleagues and soldiers in cold blood. They were going to kill her, and, _goddammit, she was not going to die_ _being ripped to pieces by tentacles_.

The crystals flared under her rage. This time Corinne went with it, letting her terror and fury drive her. She ducked around the pillar and pushed her emotions into the magic, willing it to come to life. This time managed to send a massive blue bolt straight into the portal. It bounced off the gate as her last attempt had, but when the energy bolt broke into pieces it remained coherent and slashed into several of the creatures building the damn thing. They screeched in outrage and looked in her direction.

Alright, she thought, breathing hard in her hiding place. Hitting the portal didn’t seem to be working, but she could stop the creatures from continuing its construction. And Loki was counting on her. She had to provide enough of a distraction that he could succeed in his part of the plan. So far she was failing him miserably. She took a deep breath, pulled on her mental big girl pants, and ducked around the column again.

Five creatures were crawling around the gate with more setting a perimeter and testing the air with their tentacles to identify the new threat. This would be her last clear shot before things went to hell. She had to make it count. She pushed into the magic, imagining clean, targeted bolts of energy striking the creatures crawling on the wall down. She braced her left forearm with her right hand and let fly. The magic hummed and flared, responding to her with joy.

Her aim was shoddy, but the effect was exactly what was needed. Two of the creatures were struck by the blasts, but the other three bounced off the wall and into the mob. She ducked behind the pillar again, knowing that she would be spotted soon. But she needed a moment. She needed a second to work out this freaking magic and learn how to use it properly. _Think, think, think!_ What did she know? This was a weapon, it responded to strong emotions, it wanted to please her, and it craved direction. Her pillar shook as a bolt of red energy ricocheted off of it. Her hiding place was no longer safe. The sheath flared brilliant at the attack and a surge of anger flushed up her arm. _It wanted to protect her._

Corinne’s mind whipped through a series of potential plans in microseconds. She settled on the most fitting and ducked around the other side of the column. She sent clear, concise thoughts to the crystals this time fueling them with her rage and fear.

Energy blew from her arm with the cadence of a semi-automatic weapon. Tight, compressed bolts aimed at the creatures on the wall and the increasing number of sentinels protecting them. They hit hard and true, dropping bodies in a wide swathe around the portal. The screeching grew to a manic pitch and suddenly a dozen of the creatures were flying for her spot on the catwalk. She took a second to blast the nearest set of stairs leading to her position and then took off at a dead run, adrenaline and victory surging through her veins. _She could do this!_

She paused at the corner to look over her shoulder. Nothing there yet, but she could feel the catwalk shaking as the creatures tried to find purchase. She took the moment to let loose another barrage across the warehouse still aiming for the creatures protecting the portal. The bolts were stronger this time, more focused. She felt the magic hum in ecstasy and she returned the feeling a hundred-fold.

_They were powerful together. Unstoppable._

She ran on, taking the next corner and ending at the point farthest from the portal. The creatures were writhing below her in a controlled wave heading in her direction. _Shit._ They were onto her. She took her chances and hit the creatures around the portal again in a concussive stream of bolts. Tentacles and crystals blew in all directions, but the attack wasn’t enough to stop the oncoming wave. These creatures were not dumb beings; they had a hierarchy and command structure that was going into effect. And all of it was trained on her. She glanced around and realized she had nowhere else to go. She had run the entire length of the catwalk and the creatures were climbing the set of stairs closest to her, their glittering tentacles writhing smoothly up the metal in their pursuit. She took a second to destroy the nearest set of stairs leading to the mass below, but then paused. She was trapped.

She screamed and jumped as a round of red energy bolts lit up the air around her. She instinctively crouched into a ball and pressed into the scant shadow of the wall to hide. _Not good, not good, not good_ … she panted under her breath. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. What was she going to do now?

Bursts of green light abruptly lit the back of the warehouse followed closely by rumbling concussions that shook the floor. _Loki_. The tide of red energy bolts halted and turned to face the new threat, giving Corinne a brief reprieve. She looked up to see several of the creatures climbing the set of stairs at the far end of the corner juncture. She leaned out and pumped her fear and rage into a set of bursts that hit them in a line from the top of the steps to the bottom, and then realized her error. She had only injured them, not stopped them. She had barely even slowed them down. She recalibrated her plan and pushed all of her energy into a massive shot that barreled along the walkway setting the lead creature on fire in a burst of crystals and screams.

It stopped their ascent, but the creatures only paused a moment before turning waving tentacles towards her. She pumped as many bolts as she could into the creatures, hoping to take them out before they managed to fire at her. She was moderately successful. The shots went wide around her but some were close enough to singe the strands of hair dangling from her misshapen ponytail. That was too close. She was trapped up here. Staying on the catwalk was not an option. She had to get down below, see if she could find a hiding space there. It was suicide to stay up here.

Corinne peeked quickly over the railing to assess her options. It was chaos below. Loki – no, a dozen Lokis – were locked in battle with the creatures in pockets amid the chaos. _What the hell?_ But she didn’t have an opportunity to ponder that sight as more red bolts hurtled her way. One caught her in the ankle and she fell with a cry, turning as she did so to see an entire host of the monsters bearing down on her from the other end of the catwalk. Too many for her to take out alone, and her own clever strategy had destroyed the very stairs she would need to escape them. _This is it then_ , she thought grimly, begging the magic for more, demanding that it give her the power to destroy the coming onslaught, but it was all in vain as they continued scrabbling towards her in a pulsating wave despite her desperate attempts to stop them.

 

Loki turned and kicked another of the creatures in the head while turning and slicing through several tentacles reaching for him as he fought to make his way to Thor. He unleashed a subtle but powerful spell that stripped the skin off of the creatures in front of him. His mortal was right: remove the crystals and these creatures were as vulnerable as any other beings he had fought in his millennia of life. His knives flew into the large eyes of the creatures swaying before him. Without their magic to heal them, his knives were deadly and true. Their large eyes were their biggest weakness once they were stripped of the healing and protection spells.

Clever mortal, he thought as he kicked the bodies aside. Surprising, too. She was still up on the catwalk somewhere, fighting for her life. He had expected her distraction to be short and unimpressive. He had only proposed the strategy because he was overmatched with no other ally to depend on. Otherwise, he would never have willingly chosen to stand with an inexperienced mortal. Her first efforts at distraction had been as unimpressive and pathetic as he had expected. She was untutored in magic, untrained in battle. Loki was surprised she had even mustered the courage to use her magic at all. When he had left her at the pillar she had been a pale, shaking mess. He had fully expected her to freeze and never come out from her hiding place.

But she had risen to the occasion beautifully. Her first tentative attacks had stuttered and stopped. Loki, disappointed, had been preparing to take the floor without her aid when she began raining bolts down on the creatures like a master. He was impressed. She had them scrambling to regroup to face their new enemy. She had sown the discord he needed to take these things from behind. Her continued distraction coupled with his illusions were working. He was halfway to Thor. If she could keep them distracted for another few minutes, he stood a chance of saving his brother and stopping these monsters.

Human screaming rose above the din of battle. Loki glanced to the source as he elbowed a creature in the face and sheared off the tentacles trying to ensnare him. His mortal was still on the catwalk, screaming as she pumped her magic into an onrush of attackers. She was trapped, and there were too many for her to take down. This would be how it ended for her.

Loki turned back to the battle with a vicious growl, using his strength to plow through a group of the creatures. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by his mortal’s distress. She knew what she was getting into when she proposed this plan. She had known she wouldn’t make it out of this alive. He owed her nothing. He was here to save Thor and have his sentence commuted. Nothing more.

But his heart, such as it was, flinched at the thought of her death. He had come to appreciate this mortal. Her refusal to surrender in the face of the unknown, her determination to be more than a simple sheep to slaughter, and her ruthless tenacity to survive all called to him. And she was brilliant. What mortal would have thought to steal an enemy’s magic and make it her own? Even he would have been wary of taking such a course. But she did what was necessary, no matter how terrified she was. And she had mastered that magic with the same sparking intelligence that had enabled her to use her science to destroy the invaders in her first encounter with them.

It would be a shame to see that light gone from the world. Even if she was only a mortal.

Cursing under his breath, Loki looked to the catwalk again. His mortal still hadn’t given up, but she would be overpowered in seconds. He had little magic to spare, and his main goal was still to free Thor, but maybe he could give her a chance to survive. He reached a hand out and pulled the catwalk away from the wall. The entire wing of the structure became unmoored and began a deceptively graceful descent to the floor. It was all the assistance he could give her. She would have to rely on her own instincts from here. He turned back to the battle at hand.

 

Corinne yelped and scrambled for a grip on the railing as the catwalk shuddered and began falling, tilting over the battle raging below and gaining speed as its weight pulled it down. She flicked her eyes to her attackers and saw them flailing as well. They were no longer focused on her, but their tentacles gave them a much better chance of not slipping off and being crushed under the structure when it landed. That was a distinct possibility for her, especially with her ankle screaming in pain and limiting her agility. But if she continued holding on to the railing, her arms would be pinned and crushed when the catwalk landed on the floor below. A quick death was one thing, being crippled and trapped as easy prey for these creatures was another entirely. At the last second, she let go of the railing and rolled across the railing to splash into a squirming pile of tentacles.

The mass of bodies cushioned her fall. She sank into them, losing sight of the warehouse as she was surrounded by squirming, turning bodies. Claustrophobia wrapped itself around her making it impossible to breathe. She pushed and pulled with her entire body, her panic blinding her, but she couldn’t break free.

Tentacles began wrapping around her with intent, entwining one leg and then the other. She twisted and pulled, trying to get her left forearm in a position to blast the damn things but she couldn’t manage it through the press of bodies. Her arms were neatly imprisoned next, the implacable slide of the appendages making her skin crawl. The coordinated movements hefted her up from the floor so she could at least see the light again and breathe freely. That lasted only a moment as a final tentacle wrapped around her throat and began squeezing.

Corinne struggled for breath as the noose tightened. Her arms and legs were being rent from their sockets in a slow pull. They were toying with her. She knew they could tear her to pieces in a second if they chose. She had seen it firsthand. Apparently she had earned a slow and painful death with her antics on the catwalk.

Breathing was an impossibility now even though she continued to wheeze in a futile attempt to get air into her body. The pain in her sockets became secondary; her burning lungs filled all thought, hysteria blotting out all other emotion. Her vision filled with dark splotches as lack of oxygen began overwhelming her. Struggling was becoming too much work, and she sagged in a semi-conscious state, losing contact with the world around her.

Her neurons were firing their last desperate messages. _Live!_ They screamed. _Find a way to live!_ But she was already sinking beyond conscious thought, blinding whiteness sheeting her vision as her brain began to shut down.

An unexpected calmness overcame her as she sank deeper into her subconscious. Visions of stacked crystals swirled in her brain, half-formed Schrödinger equations entwining with them, offering a promise, an idea, that felt just out of reach. She was subatomic now, dreaming of electrons spinning in complex orbits surrounding protons and neutrons, diving deeper to see their component quarks shimmering with quantum energy as they were held in their separate states. Energy, quarks, quantum realities…

She had been thinking of her magic all wrong. Or rather, the thought of magic as an impossible force to understand had prevented her from applying her scientific knowledge to it. Now she saw: biological energy exciting the crystals, forcing quarks from one quantum reality into another, releasing energy in a cascade as more quarks were forced to follow their fellows by the lowering of the activation energy needed to cross the gap. There was no reason to be limited to short blasts of magic. She could push her energy into the crystals and release _all_ the quarks, letting the energy flow in a continuous blast as chemistry and physics combined into a deadly force.

And she saw it in her last moments of life: her mitochondria furiously metabolizing ATP, releasing chemical energy that she pushed into the crystals in a steady wave, forcing one quark, and then another and another, to cross the quantum gap, releasing energy exponentially as the chain reaction picked up speed and took on a life of its own.

 

Loki was losing. The element of surprise had only gotten him so far in his quest to reach Thor. His replicas were disappearing as he poured more and more of his magic into surviving the next attack, avoiding the vicious strikes from flailing tentacles, shielding himself from energy blasts when a creature thought it had a clear strike. His progress had come to a standstill, and he was in danger of being overwhelmed and swallowed by the horde if he didn’t think of a new plan soon. He drove his knife into a tentacle that twined around his neck, but it was distraction enough for another tentacle to slither in and wrap around his calf. He cut that off as well, only to find two more tentacles encircling his torso and arm. He was going to lose if he continued this way. He needed a new plan. Hand-to-tentacle combat was a losing proposition for an army of one.

The blast of blue energy exploded through the crowd like lightning, eclipsing the dim emergency lights and bathing them all in an incandescent glow that was temporarily blinding. The creatures turned their attention to the new threat, but Loki didn’t hesitate. He ducked and pushed his way through the press of writhing limbs and bulging eyes, finding a break in the battle and quickly scanning the warehouse for the source of the magic. _What had his mortal done?_

The arc of blue brilliance continued on its path, a semicircle spinning with its epicenter in the middle of the collapsed catwalk that left burning, shrieking creatures in its wake. They were pulling back, retreating from the new and unexpected threat. They were unable to stand against it.

As quickly as it had started, the arc of energy ended. A heap of the creatures at least three deep lay dead or dying in its wake. The smell of seared flesh was terrible and nearly made him gag, but Loki refused to be distracted. As the smoke began to clear, he spied her: pale and shaking, covered in pieces of tentacle and crumpling against the catwalk, her balance wavering.

_This_ was what he needed to win. Loki put all his strength into pushing through the creatures, determined to get to his mortal before they recovered from their shock. He had seconds at most before they rallied and went for her. He had to get her to use her magic like that again. It had devastated these things; it was their only chance for victory. Loki leaped the remains separating him from the mortal, grabbing her by the back of her shirt before she collapsed. He hauled her up roughly.

“Do that again!” He roared in her face, shaking her a little when she didn’t respond.

“Can’t” She wheezed weakly, only his twisted grip in her shirt keeping her upright. “Used everything. No more energy.”

“You will!” Loki hissed in rage, spinning her in front of him to face the creatures. They were regrouping and would attack again at any moment.

“No… energy…” She mumbled, head bobbing listlessly as he shook her again. Loki growled and gripped her shoulder mercilessly with his other hand. If she needed energy, she would have it. He opened himself up to her through his grasp, viciously pushing his energy into her body.

Her entire body jerked taught in a wrenching seizure as he pumped energy into her, disregarding the strain it must be putting on her mortal body. This was their only chance. He would do whatever it took to make this work, her weaknesses be damned.

“Do it!” He demanded harshly in her ear. “Do it now or we both die!”

She raised an unsteady arm, the crystals beginning to flicker, and Loki pumped more of his life force into her. She began screaming in pain and defiance, an arcing stream of deadly blue energy pouring from her arm in a continuous wave. He spun her slowly before him ensuring that her blast hit the next wave of creatures coming for them. The power was unbelievable; nothing but charred and burning remains were left as the magic decimated the creatures.

Loki’s smile was jerked from his face as the flow of power between them abruptly inverted. He was no longer pushing his energy into his mortal; she was actively pulling it from him, catching him off guard as she siphoned more and more of his life force into her own. Her demand was voracious and for a moment their positions were reversed: she was standing strong and bold while he sagged under the unexpected depletion of his power.

The creatures were retreating now, scrambling over one another, screeching in rage and fear. They fell back to defend the portal where creatures were still furiously working to complete it despite the battle raging around them. The mortal strode forward, strong and confident with her new found energy. Loki, adjusting to the new power dynamic as quickly as he could, followed her lead with a stumbling gait.

His mortal was absolutely ruthless. She pulled energy from him without regard for his limits, and she channeled it directly through the crystals humming along her forearm. The blue ramped to a blinding, iridescent silver. It lashed through the creatures with a voracious rage, boiling the flesh from the creatures, melting them in their path. She pushed on, heedless of the carnage she was wreaking before them, plowing through the gruesome destruction she was creating, and continuing to destroy everything in her path. She made a beeline for the portal, wiping out wave after wave of the creatures that stood in their way.

Loki was breathing hard. The toll this mortal was taking on him was enormous. _How was she even doing this?_ He was a god; no mortal should be able to extract or even survive the amount of power she was taking from him. But she continued to draw from him, heedless of the price. They were at the gate now. It was undefended since she had decimated its ranks of defenders, but its aspect was worrying. It was so near to completion that it almost made no difference. The lavender surface was pulsating furiously, becoming more transparent with each throb and protrusion.

His mortal turned her focus to the gate, pouring her power at it furiously. She was shaking under his hands now. She was reaching the end of what she could bear. Loki was close to the end himself. His mortal abruptly broke the flow of energy with a curse and collapsed, dragging him down with her in a pile on the floor, both of them incapable of true movement. The portal remained undamaged despite her efforts. They could be facing these creatures again within minutes if something wasn’t done soon.

Loki whipped his gaze furiously around the room searching for Thor. Surely he had managed to escape his captivity during the battle. Nothing managed to keep his bullheaded brother down for long. Indeed, he spied his brother, wavering and stumbling down steps as he threw off his final captors.

“Destroy the gate!” He screamed to his brother. Thor stumbled confused among the wreckage before him.

“The gate, _the gate_ ,” Loki urged, trying to draw his brother’s attention. Mjolnir flowed to his brother’s hand on instinct, melding to his brother as a lover, pleased to be home.

“Destroy it!” He urged, too weak to bring his own magic to the fore. “Do it now! Or all is lost!”

Thor turned and saw them, crumpled in front of a portal ready to spew forth the unimaginable, and began spinning his great hammer. The blast when he let forth was horrific in its destruction. Mjolnir hit the portal and disrupted the magic in a blast that blew through the warehouse in a destructive wave, dissipating its power in a brutal strike. Loki clutched his mortal to him, using the last of his magic to will the wave of destruction to flow over and around them. The portal lay dead in the face of Mjolnir’s power. Concrete sagged and melted before them. They were safe. Loki slowly sat up, weak from the draining of his power. He stared down at his mortal, lying limp across his thighs.

“Mortal, do you yet live?” He asked softly as he shook her gently in his arms. His eyes surveyed the listless form cuddled against him, hoping that the worst had not happened. She had come too far for him to lose her at the last minute

“Corinne,” She muttered. Her eyes were still closed, but irritation rang clear in her voice. “My name is Corinne.” She insisted, her hands wrapping tightly in the straps of his greaves as her eyes finally opened to meet his. His anxiety eased at her insistence. If she was angry, there was still a chance that she would live.

“Corinne,” He conceded with a smile, helping her into a sitting position. This mortal had definitely earned a place in his memory. She had exceeded his wildest dreams of what a mortal was capable of accomplishing. She had more than earned a name.

“Corinne, how do you feel?” He asked cautiously, wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her close. Too much had happened for him to be sure of her fate. She had pushed beyond the bounds of everything he thought possible, had accepted and used power beyond the capacity of any mortal he had ever known.

“Terrible,” She croaked. “And I think we broke the magic,” She huffed as she brought her forearm into his view. The crystals were black and gray, smoking where her arm sagged on her thighs. He sloughed the dead crystals from her skin, revealing a horrific burn. Her skin bubbled and crisped before his eyes.

“They gave everything,” She mourned as the crystals fell away, despite the pain she must be feeling. “They loved me, and I loved them. And I killed them in return for their dedication.”

“Such is the price of magic,” he explained, rocking her in his arms with sympathy. “When we control, we demand sacrifice in return. It is not easy, and it is not fair.”

“Then magic is bullshit,” She returned sadly, sagging against his chest. Loki rested his chin on her crown and simply held her. He had no witty reply to her statement. He had only his meager sympathy to give.

“Brother,” Thor’s shadow encompassed Loki as he cradled Corinne in the debris. “We must go. We have work to do.”

Loki met Thor’s eyes and remembered why he hated him. It was always about Thor. It was never about Loki. He knew his brother was grieving, but still, Thor showed no gratitude for his rescue, had no questions regarding the battle, and didn’t even seem to notice the mortal he was cradling in his arms. Loki being kind to a mortal should have at least raised Thor’s eyebrows.

“I need a minute to recover, Thor,” He replied, the exhaustion heavy in his voice. “And Corinne needs care. Killing those creatures was not a simple task. If you rush after them, you will only cause more harm, perhaps even get yourself killed.”

Thor growled and grabbed Loki by the front of his armor, dragging him to a standing position.

“I care not,” He spat in Loki’s face. “They killed my Jane. I will see them all die.”

Loki sighed. He recognized a losing battle when he saw one. He cast his eyes to Corinne. She was huddled limply on the ground where she had rolled from his arms. With a spurt of alarm Loki realized he could still feel her. The flow of energy between them persisted, weak and faint since they were both depleted, but there. He couldn’t leave her this way. As his body struggled to regain energy it would pull from her reserves whether he wanted it to or not. Leaving that connection open would kill her. It would be murder.

He tried to jerk from Thor’s grip, but couldn’t muster the strength to break free.

“Let me go, you giant ass!” Loki hissed, trying to pry Thor’s fingers from his armor. “I am not finished here!” His fury burned bright and hot. After all they had been through, he would not leave Corinne to die needlessly. He would have failed in his mission without her. Thor would have died without her. She was the hero here. His repayment for her bravery would not be a painful death at his own hands.

“I say we are finished here!” Thor screamed back, shaking Loki in his grasp. “Heimdall!” He called to the ceiling. “Bring us home!”

“No!” Loki screamed and twisted, but the rainbow light filled his vision and took them both to Asgard.

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

For Corinne, the end of the battle was searing pain, sad green eyes, and a rainbow maelstrom followed by a deafening stillness that made her wonder if this was what her final moments really amounted to: Silence. Emptiness. A quiet end.

It was a relief in a way. No terror, no rage, no fear. Just the memory of solemn green eyes giving her comfort and sympathy. It was enough. She was satisfied.

Until harsh oxygen was forced into her lungs, a mask jammed over her face, and electrical charges burst through her rib cage forcing her heart to beat again. She wasn’t sure she wanted this, but she had no choice. Life was being forced upon her, and biology could do nothing but bow to the power of science.

Much later her eyes fluttered open to a dim hospital room. It must be the night shift. Her eyes flicked from side to side trying to see her surroundings, but her head was essentially immobile from the intubation tube and the equipment wired into her to keep her alive. One bed was on her right. She slid her gaze sideways and took in the small form under the sheets. Neither of them looked like they were heading for a particularly happy ending. Tubes and machines were handling all their vital functions. Beeps and tones were the only indicators of life. After serious concentration, Corinne realized it took all of her will to move her right index finger. The effort left her breathless and aching.

Memories of the battle came back to her in a rush. She and Loki had been unstoppable, a force for the gods to reckon with as they had destroyed the horde. She had never dreamed of that kind of power, had never imagined that magic and science could meld into such an unstoppable weapon. In the end, she had become the wolf she wanted to be. She had left the rabbit behind. It was the most exhilarating experience of her life. She would have smiled if she could, but the tubing in her throat prevented any movement.

Where had it all gone wrong? She wondered. Magic and science had intertwined so beautifully in that last push of the battle. She and Loki had been seamless, working as a single team to destroy those creatures. They had flowed together, and it had been glorious. Even now she could still feel him if she concentrated. There was a fine filament stretching between them, a thin stream of energy pulling from her to Loki. She had no idea where he was or what he was doing, she could only feel the inexorable pull of him through each breath forced into her lungs.

Could he feel it too? She wondered. Or was she simply suffering the fatal aftereffects of a mortal using magic? Her body hadn’t been built to wield that kind or level of power. Perhaps that was why she struggled for breath, why each eye blink was a massive effort. Maybe she was never meant to recover from such an experience. She wished she could communicate to SHIELD somehow, to get them to cease their efforts to keep her alive. She had done more than she ever dreamed possible with her life. She was satisfied. She had no desire to continue living as a vegetable persisting at the will of machines.

In the end, even her thoughts were too exhausting, and she slipped back into the blessed darkness of unconsciousness.

 

Loki seized inside his cell, curled on his cot as he forced wave after wave of power away from him. It took all of his will to push the power back to its origin, and even then he was successful less than half the time. His muscles strained and contorted with his effort, but it was a losing battle.

These waves were coming from his mortal, Corinne, and every time he accepted one, he pushed her one step closer to death. Their connection during that final, furious push to destroy the creatures had never been severed properly. As his body regained its natural equilibrium, it drew energy from all available sources. As he was still attached to Corinne, any energy she regained had no choice but to come to him as he was the more powerful being. Once he started drawing consistently from her, Corinne’s death was assured. If only Thor had listened to him. Just given him the few minutes necessary to safely close the flow of energy between them. Instead his brother had pulled him into the Bifrost and dumped him back in his cell.

Loki had taken many, many lives in his long years. He remained unapologetic about them. Death had served its purpose in his schemes, and it would to do so again in the future. _But not this death._ He screamed between clenched teeth as he pushed another pulse of energy away. He would not be the one to murder Corinne. Intelligent, ruthless, determined – he had grown to care for and admire her during their brief association. He refused to be the cause of her departure from the universe. If Corinne died from this, Thor would be the next death he added to his long list.

“Loki?” His mother’s voice washed over him like a balm. Frigga alone stood beside him in Asgard. Only she understood him, cared for him, loved him. He only lived because of her.

“I need to go back!” He demanded furiously, jumping from his cot to face his mother’s image. Another pulse of energy tried to force its way into him, and he crumpled to his knees. “To Midgard. _Now_.” He ground out around the effort of negating the flowing energy. His hands were on the floor. He could see his mother’s delicate slippers between the strands of hair hanging over his face.

“I don’t understand, Loki,” Frigga’s form crouched down to meet him. She couldn’t touch him in her ephemeral state. She was only allowed to visit him using illusion.

“If I don’t go, there will be a death on my conscience,” He pleaded angrily, looking up the length of her sparkling gown.

“That has never bothered you in the past,” She pointed out tersely raising an eyebrow at her son.

“Maybe I’ve _reformed_ ,” He spat viciously. “Isn’t that what you want? That I learn the error of my ways?” Frigga stepped away from the rage in her son’s voice. He smiled derisively up at her. “But now that I may have, now that there is a chance for me to be honorable, you leave me trapped here. How is this the noble Asgardian justice that you preach?” Disgust dripped from his voice. He heaved again as a wave of energy flowed over and sank into him. _Damn_. That was one less moment that Corinne had to live.

“Who is this person that you must save?” Frigga asked, her curiosity piqued. For her guarded, angry son to express any concern for another was shocking and relieving at the same time. Loki twitched before her, not wanting to reveal his inner emotions. He was guarded as always, she sighed to herself. Would her son ever learn to trust again?

“A friend,” Loki ground out reluctantly. He heaved again at her feet, droplets of sweat hitting the floor around him as he struggled.

“Your father will never allow it,” Frigga replied sadly.

“ _He is not my father!”_ Loki erupted, launching to his feet. “Are you not the All-Mother? Do you not have power in your own right? Must you submit to Odin on everything?”

Frigga took another step back in the face of her son’s rage. She hadn’t seen Loki like this since his return from his disastrous attempt to rule Midgard. He had remained stoic and unreachable for this last year. So detached from all those around him that she feared he would never heal. With a sharp nod of her head, Frigga made her decision. If this was her one chance to aid her son on his path back to the fold, she would take it. Odin may be displeased when he learned of her actions, but in the end she would win out. Her husband had never managed to remain angry with her for long.

“Very well,” She conceded. “I grant you ten minutes on Midgard to do what you must. Not a second longer.” The relief on her beloved son’s face made her heart fill with joy. Maybe there was still hope for him.

 

Loki materialized in a cold, aseptic floor of the SHIELD base. He stood before an unmarked gray steel door, but he didn’t need directions. He knew he would find Corinne in there. He stepped into the darkened room, letting the door shut silently behind him. Two beds lay before him. Two figures huddled under white sheets, hooked to tubes and wires and machines that pumped life into them. He grimaced at the sight. Midgardian medical care was gruesome and primitive. He was shocked that any of them lived through such crude manipulations of their bodies.

He passed the first bed. That person was inconsequential. Corinne lay in the second bed, and he headed there. A wave of shock and fear overcame him as he approached her. _How was she even still alive?_ She was small and fragile in the oversized bed. A large, disgusting tube ran from her throat to a ventilator that hissed as it forced air in and out of her lungs. Machines pinged regularly, measuring a heartbeat that he knew was too slow to sustain her life for much longer. Tubes ran from her veins to bags held by a stand nearby, and more tubes ran from under her hips, removing waste. She did not have much longer.

Loki approached her and placed a hand between her breasts. Her chest felt thin and brittle beneath his palm. A wave of grief and regret washed over him. He had done this to her. He had brought his brave and shining mortal low. It was time to undo his work. He gently probed her with his magic, easily finding the strand that connected them now that they were separated by mere inches rather than entire realms. He felt it sucking her life force into his and with a twist of his magic, he snapped the connection.

There was no change in Corinne. He frowned down at her still form. He had expected visible manifestation in her. A rise in her heartbeat or a fluttering of her eyes, but there was nothing to indicate that she was healing now that their connection was severed. Was he perhaps too late? A spike of fear sliced his heart. He had to know if she was going to live. He moved closer to her, threading his fingers through the lank hair of her scalp and pressing his palm to her forehead. He opened his mind to hers.

_“Corinne?”_ He asked, probing her mind, hoping for a response. He waited with bated breath as the seconds ticked by in silence.

_“Loki?”_ He finally heard. A bare whisper in the dark of her mind, weak and faint.

_“Yes,”_ He whispered to her soothingly, a spurt of joy surging through him at her response. _“I am here.”_ Another long pause on her part.

_“Why?”_ Her mind was a twisting mass of confusion.

_“You were dying.”_ Before he could explain further, a rush of emotions and images flooded from her mind into his.

_The terror clawing at her throat, the thrill of her first battle, pride in their power as she and Loki combined strengths to create a new magic, exhilaration as they mowed down oncoming attackers, the rush of victory as the final creatures were burned away. And overlaid across all, sheer joy at having overcome her fears and taken her destiny into her own hands._

As the emotions unspooled, they became stronger and clearer. Indeed, she was regaining her strength now that he was no longer draining her.

Loki couldn’t help the rush of pride that overcame him as he saw the events through her eyes. He remembered Corinne as he had first found her: a mere useless mortal, unsure yet determined, outmatched but tenacious. He well recalled his doubts in her abilities, but she had astonished him in the end. Yes, his mortal was special. She had overcome much in such a very short time to become an equal partner in their quest. He was unsure he could name another who had started with so little yet risen to meet such a challenge.

_“You didn’t have to come,”_ She admonished him gently, strong enough now to form entire thoughts. _“It would have been a worthy death.”_

_“No,”_ He contradicted her softly, letting her feel his pride in her, and then his guilt. _“Using magic was not what was killing you. I did not have the time to break our connection before returning to Asgard._ I _was killing you.”_

_“I don’t understand,”_ A mental frown creased her thoughts. He pushed the simplest explanation of magical workings he could into her mind, wondering if she would be able to grasp the concepts.

_“Ah… equilibrium…”_ She sighed with a chuckle. _“Le Chatelier’s principle of magic.”_

Loki smiled down at her still form. Of course his clever mortal would understand. He should know by now never to underestimate her. He heard a sound in the hall, and his head whipped around. He could not be discovered here. And he only had a few minutes left before he was dragged back to Asgard. So little time to spend with his mortal. Loki wanted more. He wanted to know Corinne for who she was, explore the universe with her clever mind beside him sharing ideas and creating mischief. Alas, that was not to be.

_“You’re leaving,”_ She stated softly, feeling his obligations through their connection.

_“I must,”_ He replied regretfully. _“I have no choice.”_ He pressed a soft kiss to her temple in farewell.

_“Will I ever see you again?”_ Her question was plaintive as it swirled into his mind. He smiled fiercely down at her.

_“The next time I try to conquer Midgard, you will stand by my side,”_ He promised her playfully as he removed his hand from her forehead to break their connection. Corinne’s rolling laughter was the last thing her heard from her. He snatched it to him and solidified the memory to keep in the dark vault of his heart where all of his vulnerable feelings were kept safe from those who would harm him or his own.

As he strode away, he stopped at the foot of the other bed, mildly curious as to who lay within. He picked up the clipboard hanging from the rail. J. FOSTER it read in bright red letters.

Loki sighed and let the placard drop back into place. And so history repeated itself. Thor would get his bright, shining ending and be with the woman he loved while Loki was once again forced into the shadows, his desires of no one’s concern. As he turned, the Bifrost encompassed him and sent him back to his cell on Asgard.

**The End.**

 


End file.
